


heaven and hell are both satisfied

by seaandstars (faeriestyles)



Series: Soul Meets Body [1]
Category: One Direction (Band), The Mara Dyer Series - Michelle Hodkin
Genre: F/F, Hallucinations, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Please Don't Hate Me, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychotic break, character name changes, if anyone finds any other things that should be tagged let me know, michelle hodkin owns everything about this story and my ass, or sue me, things get kind of crazy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-07-15
Packaged: 2018-07-14 04:35:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 48,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7153781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faeriestyles/pseuds/seaandstars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><div class="center">
  <p>Louis Tomlinson believes life can't get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how he got there.</p>
  <p>  <b>It can.</b></p>
  <p>He believes there must be more to the accident he can't remember that killed his friends and left him strangely unharmed. </p>
  <p>  <b>There is.</b></p>
  <p>He doesn't believe that after everything he's been through, he can fall in love. </p>
  <p>  <b>He's wrong.</b><br/></p>
</div>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Unsettling

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/204896) by Michelle Hodkin. 



> Literally no part of this work is mine. Every aspect of this work belongs to Michelle Hodkin, as it is an adaptation of the first part of her Mara Dyer series, [The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004IK988I/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1), and all I did was change some of the character's names and a select few lines, as well as add a few things, but only so that it would fit this purpose. 
> 
> This is purely self-indulgent because I've been dying to read a Mara Dyer AU with Louis as Mara and Harry as Noah, so I figured this was the easier route to take. Again, Michelle Hodkin owns this. Not me. Everyone go buy the trilogy, it's absolutely brilliant. Also, the title comes from a lyric I personally butchered (on purpose) from Death Cab for Cutie's "I Will Follow You Into the Dark". Enjoy!

_My name is not Louis Tomlinson, but my lawyer told me I had to choose something. A pseudonym. A_ _nom de plume_ _, for all of us studying for the SATs. I know that having a fake name is strange, but trust me—it’s the most normal thing about my life right now. Even telling you this much probably isn’t smart. But without my big mouth, no one would know that an seventeen year old who likes Death Cab for Cutie was responsible for the murders. No one would know that somewhere out there is a B student with abody count. And it’s important that you know, so you’re not next._

_Niall’s birthday was the beginning._

_This is what I remember._

_‘Louis Tomlinson’_

_—————, New York City_

_————————_

❂ 

 

B E F O R E

_Laurelton, Rhode Island_

 

 **T** he ornate script on the board twisted in the candlelight, making the letters and numbers dance in Louis’s head. They were jumbled and indistinct, like alphabet soup. When Nick pushed the heart-shaped piece into Louis’s hand, he startled. He wasn’t normally so twitchy, and hoped Niall wouldn’t notice. The Ouija board was his favorite present that night, and Nick got it for him. Louis got him a new video game. He hadn’t even touched it.

Kneeling on the carpet, Louis passed the piece to Niall. Nick shook his head, oozing disdain. Niall put the piece down.

“It’s just a game, Louis.” He smiled, his teeth looking even whiter in the dim light. Niall and Louis had been best friends since preschool, and where Niall was bright, popular and fun, Louis was dark, small and cautious. But less so when they were together. He made him feel bold. Usually.

“I don’t have anything to ask dead people,” Louis said to him. And at sixteen, they were too old for this, he didn’t say.

“Ask whether Liam will ever like you back.”

Nick’s voice was innocent, but Louis knew him better. His cheeks flamed, but he stifled the urge to snap at him and laughed it off. “Can I ask it for my own car? Is this like a dead Santa scenario?”

“Actually, since it’s my birthday, I’m going first.” Niall put his fingers on the piece. Nick and Louis followed him.

“Oh! Niall, ask it how you’re going to die.”

Niall excitedly murmured his assent, and Louis shot a dark look at Nick. Since moving here six months ago, he’d latched onto his best friend like a starving leech. His twin missions in life were now to make Louis feel like the third wheel, and to torture him for his crush on his half-brother, Liam. Louis was equally sick of both.

“Remember not to push,” Nick ordered Louis.

“Got it, thanks. Anything else?”

But Niall interrupted them before they could descend into bickering. “How am I going to die?”

The three boys watched the board. Louis’s calves prickled from kneeling on Niall’s carpet for so long, and the backs of his knees felt clammy. Nothing happened.

Then something did. They looked at each other as the piece moved under their hands. It semi-circled the board, sailing pasted _A_ through _J_ , and crept past _K_.

It settled on _L_.

“Landmine?” Nick’s voice was soaked with excitement. He was so sketchy. What did Niall see in him?

The piece glided in the wrong direction. Away from _A_ and _N_.

Landing on _O._

Niall looked confused. “Longbow?”

“Long _sword_?” Nick asked. “Maybe you travel back in time and get stabbed by a knight? Or you have an unfortunate accident at a museum of European history.” Niall laughed, briefly dissolving the panic that had slithered into Louis’s stomach. When they first sat down to play, he had to resist the urge to roll his eyes at Nick’s melodramatics. Now, not so much.

The piece zigzagged across the board, cutting his laughter short.

 _U_.

They were silent. Their eyes didn’t leave the board as the piece jerked upwards to the right.

 _I_. It then began sliding around dramatically before landing on another letter.

 _S_.

Then stopped.

They waited for the piece to point out a next letter but it remained still. After three minutes, Niall and Nick withdrew their hands. Louis felt them watching him.

“It wants to ask you something,” Niall said softly.

“If by ‘it’ you mean Nick, I’m sure that’s true.” Louis stood up, shaking and nauseous. He was done.

“I didn’t push it,” Nick said, wide-eyes as he looked at Niall, then Louis.

“Pinky swear?” Louis asked, with sarcasm.

“Why not,” Nick answered, with malice. He stood and walked closer to him. Too close. His brown eyes were dangerous. “I didn’t push it,” he said again. “It wants _you_ to play.”

Niall grabbed Louis’s hand and pulled himself up off the floor. He looked straight at Nick. “I believe you,” he said, “but let’s do something else?”

“Like what?” Nick’s voice was flat, and Louis started right back at him, unflinching. _Here we go_.

“We can watch _The Blair Witch Project_.” Nick’s favorite, naturally. “How about it?” Niall’s voice was tentative, but firm.

Louis tore his eyes away from Nick’s and nodded, managing a smile. Nick did the same. Niall relaxed, but Louis didn’t. For his sake, though, Louis tried to swallow his anger and unease as they settled in to watch the movie. Niall popped in the DVD and blew out the candles.

Six months later, they were both dead.


	2. The Unraveling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Again:** none of this belongs to me. Everything about this plot and the character development belongs to the lovely Michelle Hodkin. Also, this is 3000% false, and please do not forward any part of this to any of the boys or anyone connected to them. Enjoy. :)

A F T E R

_Rhode Island Hospital_

_Providence, Rhode Island_

 

 **L** ouis opened his eyes. A persistent machine beeper rhythmically to his left. He looked to his right. Another machine hissed beside the beside table. His head ached and he was disoriented. His eyes struggled to interpret the positions of the hands on the clock hanging next to the bathroom door. He heard voices outside his room. He sat up in the hospital bed, the thin pillows crinkling underneath him as he shifted to try and hear. Something tickled the skin under his nose. A tube. He tried to move his hands to pull it away but when he looked at them, there were other tubes. Attached to needles. Protruding from his skin. He felt a tugging tightness as he moved his hands and his stomach slithered into his toes.

“Get them out,” Louis whispered to the air. He could see where the sharp steel entered his veins. His breath shortened and a scream rose in his throat.

“Get them out,” he said, louder this time.

“What?” asked a small voice, whose source he couldn’t see.

“Get them out!” Louis screamed.

Bodies crowded the room; he could make out his father’s face, frantic and paler than usual. “Calm down, Louis.”

And then he saw his little brother, Ernest, wide-eyes and scared. Dark spots blotted out faces of everyone else, and then all he could see were the forest of needles and tubes, and felt that tight sensation against his dry skin. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t speak. But he could still move. Louis clawed at his arm with one hand and ripped out the first tube. The pain was violent. It gave him something to hold on to.

“Just breathe. It’s okay, It’s okay.”

But it wasn’t okay. They weren’t listening to him, and they needed to get them out. He tried to tell them, but the darkness grew, swallowing the room.

“Louis?”

He blinked, but saw nothing. The beeping and hissing had stopped.

“Don’t fight it, sweetie.”

Louis’ eyelids fluttered at the sound of his mother, Jay’s, voice. She leaned over him, adjusting one of the pillows, and a sheet of brown hair fell of her tan skin. He tried to move, to get out of her way, but he could barely hold his head up. He glimpsed two dour-faced nurses behind her. One of them had a red welt on her cheek.

“What’s wrong with me?” Louis whispered hoarsely. His lips felt like paper.

His mother brushed a sweaty strand of hair from his face. “They gave you something to help you relax.”

He breathed in. The tube under his nose was gone. And the ones from his hands, too. They were replaced by gauzy white bandages wrapped around his skin. Spots of red bled through. Something released itself from his chest and a deep sigh shuddered from his lips. The room shifted into focus, now that the needles were out.

Louis looks at his father, sitting at the far wall, looking helpless. “What happened?” Louis asked hazily.

“You were in an accident, honey,” his mother answered. His father met his eyes, but he didn’t say anything. Mom was running this show.

Louis’ thoughts swam. An accident. When?

“Is the other driver—” Louis started, but couldn’t finish.

“Not a car accident, Louis.” Jay’s voice was calm. Steady. It was her psychologist voice, he realized. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

More than waking up in a hospital room, or seeing tubes attached to his skin—more than anything else—that question unnerved him. He stared at her closely for the first time. Her eyes were shadowed, and her nails, usually perfectly manicured, were ragged.

“What day is it?” Louis asked quietly.

“What day do you think it is?” His mother loved answering questions with questions.

He rubbed his hands over his face. His skin seemed to whisper on contact. “Wednesday?”

His mother looked at him carefully. “Sunday.”

Sunday. He looked away from her, his eyes roaming the hospital room instead. He hadn’t noticed the flowers before, but they were everywhere. A vase of yellow roses were right beside his bed. Niall’s favorite. A box of his things from the house sat in a chair next to the bed, an old cloth doll his grandmother had left to him when he was a baby lounged inside, resting its limp arm around the rim.

“What do you remember, Louis?”

“I had a history test Wednesday. I drove home from school and…”

He rifled through his thoughts, his memories. Him, walking into his house. Grabbing a cereal bar from the kitchen. Walking to his bedroom on the first floor, dropping his bag and taking out Sophocles’ _Three Theban Plays_. Writing. Then drawing in his sketchbook. Then…nothing.

A slow, creeping fear wound its way around his belly. “That’s it,” he told her, looking up at her face.

A muscle above his mother’s eyelid twitched. “You were at The Tamerlane—” she started.

Oh, God.

“The building collapsed. Someone reported it at about three a.m. Thursday. When the police arrived, they heard you.”

His father cleared his throat. “You were screaming.”

His mother shot him a look before turning back to Louis. “The way the building fell, you were buried in a pocket of air, in the basement, but you were unconscious when they reached you. You might have fainted from dehydration, but it’s possible that something fell and knocked you out. You do have a few bruises,” she said, pushing aside his hair.

He looked pasted her, and saw her torso reflected in a mirror above the sink. Louis wondered what “a few bruises” looked like when a building fell on your head.

He pushed himself up. The silent nurses stiffened. They were acting more like guards.

Louis’ joints protested as he craned his head over the bed rails to see. His mother looked in the mirror with him. She was right; a bluish shadow blossomed over his right cheekbone. He pushed his honey hair back to see the extent of it, but that was it. Otherwise he looked—normal. Normal for him, and normal, period. His gaze shifted to his mother. His thoughts ran wild, and he wondered why except for the one bruise, he did not look like a building had collapsed on him at all. He narrowed his eyes at his reflection, then leaned back against the pillows and stared at the ceiling.

“The doctors said you’re going to be fine.” His mother smiled faintly. “You can come home tonight, even, if you feel well enough.”

He lowered his gaze to the nurses. “Why are they here?” Louis asked his mother, staring straight at them. They were creeping him out.

“They’ve been taking care of you since Wednesday,” she said. She nodded at the nurse with the welt on her cheek. “This is Carmella,” she said, then indicated the other nurse. “And this is Linda.”

Carmella, the nurse with the welt on her cheek, smiled, but it wasn’t warm. “You have some right hook.”

Louis’ forehead crumpled. He looked at his mother.

“You panicked when you woke up before, and they had to be here when you woke up just in case you were…still disoriented.”

“Happens all the time,” Carmella said. “And if you’re feeling like yourself now, we can go.”

Louis nodded, his throat dry. “Thank you. I’m sorry.”

“No problem, sweetie,” she said. Her words sounded fake. Linda hadn’t said a word the whole time.

“Let us know if you need anything.” They turned and walked synchronously out of the room, leaving Louis and his family alone.

He was glad they were gone. And then he realized that his reaction to them was probably not normal. He needed to focus on something else. His eyes swept the room, and finally landed on the beside table, on the roses. They were fresh, untitled. He wondered when Niall brought them.

“Did he visit?”

Jay’s face darkened. “Who?”

“Niall.”

His father made a strange noise and even his mother, his practiced, perfect mother, looked uncomfortable.

“No,” she said. “Those are from his parents.”

Something about the way she said it made Louis shiver. “So he didn’t visit,” he said softly.

“No.”

Louis was cold, so cold, but he had started to sweat. “Did he call?”

“No, Louis.”

Her answer made him want to scream. He held out his arm instead. “Give me your phone. I want to call him.”

His mother tried to smile and failed miserably. “Let’s talk about this later, okay? You need to rest.”

“I want to call him now.” His voice was so close to cracking. Louis was close to cracking.

His father could tell. “He was with you, Louis. Nick and Liam, too,” he said.

 _No_.

Something tightened around his chest and he could barely find the breath to speak. “Are they in the hospital?” Louis asked, because he had to, even though he knew the answer just looking at his parents’ faces.

“They didn’t make it,” his mother said slowly.

This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be happening. Something slimy and horrible began to rise in his throat.

“How? How did they die?” He managed to ask.

“The building collapsed,” his mother said calmly.

“ _How_?”

“It was an old building, Louis. You know that.”

He couldn’t speak. Of course he knew. When his father moved home to Rhode Island after law school, he’d represented the family of a boy who had been trapped inside the building. A boy who died. Lottie was forbidden from going there, not that his perfect younger sister ever would. Not that _he_ ever would.

But for some reason, he had. With Niall, Nick, and Liam.

With Niall. _Niall_.

He had a sudden image of Niall walking boldly into kindergarten, holding his hand. Of Niall turning out the lights in his bedroom and telling Louis his secrets, after Niall had listened to his. There was no time to even process the words “Nick and Liam, too,” because the word “Niall” filled Louis’ mind. He felt a hot tear slide down his cheek.

“What if—what if he was just trapped, too?” Louis asked.

“Honey, no. They searched. They found—” Jay stopped.

“What?” he demanded, his voice shrill. “What did they find?”

She considered him. Studied him. She said nothing.

“Tell me,” Louis said, a knife’s edge in his voice. “I want to know.”

“They found…remains,” she said vaguely. “They’re gone, Louis. They didn’t make it.”

Remains. Pieces, she meant. A wave of nausea rocked Louis’ stomach. He wanted to gag. He stared hard at the yellow roses from Niall’s mother instead, then squeezed his eyes shut and searched from a memory, any memory, of that night. Why they went. What they were doing there. What killed them.

“I want to know everything that happened.”

“Louis—”

He recognized her placating tone and his fingers curled into fists around his sheets. She was trying to protect him but she was torturing him instead.

“You have to tell me,” he begged, his throat filled with ash.

Jay looked at him with glassy eyes and a heartbroken face. “I would if I could, Louis. But you’re the only one who knows.”

 

❂

_Laurelton Memorial Cemetery, Rhode Island_

 

 **T** he sun reflected off the polished mahogany of Niall’s coffin, blinding him. Louis stared, letting the light sear his corneas, hoping the tears would come. He should cry. But he couldn’t.

Everyone else could, though, and did. People he never even spoke to, people he didn’t even like. Everyone from school was there, claiming a piece of him. Everyone except Nick and Liam. Their memorial service was that afternoon.

It was a gray and white day, a biting New England winter day. One of Louis’ last.

The wind blew, lashing his too-long hair against his cheeks. A handful of mourners separated him from his parents, silhouettes of black against the colorless, unbroken sky. Louis hunched into his coat, and wrapped it tighter around his body, shielding himself from his Jay’s unlinking stare. She’d been watching his reactions since they released him from the hospital; she was the first to reach him that night when his screaming woke the neighbors, and she was the one who caught him crying in his closet the next day. But it was only after she found Louis two days later, dazed and blinking and clutching a shard of a broken mirror in his bloody hand, that she insisted on getting him help.

What he got was a diagnosis. Post-traumatic stress disorder, the psychologist said. Nightmares and visual hallucinations were his new normal, apparently, and something about his behavior in the psychologist’s office made the doctor recommend a long-term care facility.

Louis couldn’t let that happen. Louis recommended moving instead.

He remembered the way his mother’s eyes narrowed when he brought it up a few days after the disastrous appointment. So wary. So _cautious_ , like he was a bomb under her bed.

“I really think it will help,” Louis said, not believing that at all. But he had been nightmare-free for two nights, and the mirror episode he didn’t remember was apparently the only one. The psychologist was overreacting, just like his mother.

“Why do you think so?” Jay’s voice was casual and even, but her nails were still bitten down to the beds.

Louis tried to recall the mostly one-sided conversation he’d had with the psychologist.

“He was always in this house—I can’t look at anything without thinking about him. And if I go back to school, I’ll see him there, too. But I want to go back to school. I need to. I need to think about something else.”

“I’ll talk to your father about it,” she said, her eyes searching his face. Louis could see in every crease of her forehead, every tilt of her chin, that she didn’t understand how her son could have gotten here—how Louis could have snuck out of the house and ended up in the last place he should. She had asked him as much, but of course he had no answer.

He heard his sister’s voice out of nowhere. “I think it’s almost over,” Lottie said.

Louis’ heartbeat slowed as he looked down at his younger sister. And as she predicted, the priest then asked them all to bow their heads and pray.

Louis shifted uncomfortably, the brittle grass crunching under his boots, and glanced at his mother. They weren’t religious and frankly, Louis wasn’t sure what to do. If there was some protocol for how to behave at your best friend’s funeral, he didn’t get the memo. But his mother tilted her head, her long dark brown hair falling against her perfect skin as she appraised him, examined him, to see what he’d choose. Louis looked away.

After an eternity of seconds, heads lifted as if eager for it to be over, and the crowd dissolved. Lottie stood beside Louis while his classmates took turns telling him how sorry they were, promising to stay in touch after the move. He hadn’t been in school since the day of the accident, but some of them had come to visit him in the hospital. Probably just out of curiosity. No one asked Louis how it happened, and he was glad because he couldn’t tell them. He still didn’t know.

Squawking pierced the funeral’s hushed atmosphere as hundreds of black birds flew overhead in a rush of beating wings. They settled on a cluster of leafless trees that overlooked the parking lot. Even the trees were wearing black.

Louis faced his sister. “Didn’t you park the car under those crows?”

She nodded, and started walking to the car.

“Fabulous,” Louis said as he followed her. “Now we’re going to have to dodge shit from the whole flock.”

“Murder.”

Louis stopped. “What?”

Lottie turned around. “It’s called a murder of crows. Not a flock. And yes, we’re going to dodge avian fecal matter, unless you want to go with Mom and Dad?”

Louis smiled, relieved without knowing why. “Pass.”

“Thought so.”

Lottie waited for Louis and he was grateful for the escape. He glanced back to make sure his mother wasn’t watching. But she was busy talking to Niall’s family, who they’d known for years. It was too easy to forget that his parents were leaving everything behind too; his father’s law practice, his mother’s patients. And Félicité, Doris and Ernest, though much younger than Louis, accepted without much explanation that they were moving and agreed to leave their friends without complaint. When Louis thought about it, he knew that he had won the family lottery. He made the mental note to behave more charitably toward his mother. After all, it wasn’t his fault they were leaving.

It was his.

❂

E I G H T  W E E K S  L A T E R

_Miami, Florida_

 

 **“Y** ou’re killing me, Louis.”

“Give me a minute.” Louis squinted at the spider that stood between him and his breakfast banana. She and he were working out an arrangement.

“Let me do it, then. We’re going to be late.” Lottie was getting his panties in a bunch at the thought. Miss Perfect was always punctual.

“No. You’ll kill it.”

“And?”

“And then it will be dead.”

“And?”

“Just imagine it,” Louis spoke, his eyes never leaving his arachnid opponent. “The spider family bereft of their matriarch. Her spider children waiting in their web, watching for Mother for days on end before they realize she’s been murdered.”

“She?”

“Yes.” He tilted his head at the spider. “Her name is Roxanne.”

“Of course it is. Take Roxanne outside before she meets the Op-Ed section of Ernest’s _Wall Street Journal_.”

Louis paused. “Why is our twelve year old brother getting the _Wall Street Journal_?”

Fizzy entered the kitchen at that exact moment. “He thinks it’s funny.”

Louis smiled. It was. He turned to stare at Roxanne, who had sidestepped an inch or two in response to Lottie’s threat. He held out the paper towel and reached for her, but recoiled involuntarily. For the past ten minutes, he’d been repeated this motion: reaching and withdrawing. He wanted to shepherd Roxanne to freedom, to deliver her from their kitchen and lead her to a land flowing with the blood of myriad flying insects. A land otherwise known as their backyard.

But it seemed he was not up to the task. Louis was still hungry, though, and wanted his banana. He reached for her again, his hand stuck in midair.

Lottie heaved a melodramatic sigh and stuck a cup in the microwave. She pressed a few buttons and the tray began revolving.

“You shouldn’t stand in front of the microwave.”

Lottie ignored Louis.

“You could get a brain tumor.”

“Is that a fact?” she asked.

“Do you want to find out?”

Lottie examined Louis’ hand, still suspended between his body and Roxanne’s, paralyzed. “Your level of neuroses will only find love in a made-for-TV movie.”

“Perhaps, but I’ll be tumorless. Don’t you want to be tumorless, Lottie?”

She reached into the pantry and withdrew a cereal bar. “Here,” she said, and tossed it at Louis, but lately he was useless before noon. It fell with a thud on the countertop beside him. Roxanne scurried away, and he lost track of her.

Lottie grabbed his keys and sauntered towards the front door. Louis followed her into the blinding sunlight, breakfastless.

“C’mon,” she said with false cheer. “Don’t tell me you aren’t psyched beyond belief for our first day of school.” She dodged the tiny lizards that scurried across the slate walkway of their new house. “Again.”

“I wonder if it’s snowing in Laurelton right now?”

“Probably. That, I won’t miss.”

Just when Louis thought it wasn’t possible to get any hotter, the interior of their shared Civic proved him wrong. He choked on the heat and motioned for Lottie to open the window while he sputtered.

She looked at him strangely.

“What?”

“It’s not _that_ hot.”

“I’m dying. You’re not dying?”

“No…it’s like _seventy-two_ degrees.”

“Guess I’m not used to it yet,” Louis said. They’d moved to Florida only a few weeks ago, but he wouldn’t recognize his old life in a lineup. He hated his place.

Lottie’s eyebrows were still lifted, but she changed the subject. “You know, Mom was planning to drive you to school separately today.”

Louis groaned. He didn’t want to play the patient this morning. Or any morning, actually. He contemplated buying her knitting needles, or a watercolor set. She needed a hobby that didn’t involve hovering over him.

“Thanks for taking me instead.” I met Lottie’s eyes. “I mean it.”

“No problem,” she said, and flashed a goofy smile before turning onto I-95 and into traffic.

Lottie spent a large portion of the agonizingly slow drive to school banging her forehead on the steering wheel. They were late, and as they pulled into the full parking lot, there wasn’t a single student among the glossy luxury cards.

Louis reached behind himself for Lottie’s neat and tidy backpack, which was positioned in the backseat like a passenger. He grabbed it for her and launched himself out of the car. They approached the elaborately scrolled iron gate of the Croyden Academy of the Arts and Sciences, their new institution of higher learning. A great crest was wrought into the gate—a shield in the center with a thick band extending from the top right to the bottom left, separating it into halves. There was a knight’s helmet crowning the shield, and two lions on either side. The school looked oddly out of place, considering the run-down neighborhood.

“So, what I didn’t tell you is that Mom’s picking you up this afternoon,” Lottie said.

“Traitor,” Louis mumbled.

“I know. But I need to meet with one of the guidance counselors about my college applications and she’s only free after school today.”

“What’s the point? You know you’re going to get in everywhere. Besides, you’re not even the one supposed to graduate this year. That’d be me.”

“That is far from certain,” she said. “And I know. Just like to get a head start.”

He squinted one of his eyes at Lottie.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“This is me, giving you the side eye.” Louis continued to squint.

“Well, you look like you’re having a stroke. Anyway, Mom’s going to pick you up over there,” his sister said, pointing to a cul-de-sac on the other side of campus. “Try to behave.”

Louis stifled a yawn. “It’s too early to be such an asshat, Lottie.”

“And watch you’re language. It’s unbecoming.”

“Who cares?” Louis lolled his head back as they walked, reading the named of illustrious Croyden alumni inscribed in the brick archway above their heads. Most were along the lines of Heathcliff Rotterdam III, Parker Preston XXVI, Annalise Bennet Von—

“I heard Ernest call Doris that the other day. He’s picking it up from you.”

Louis laughed.

“It’s not funny,” Lottie said.

“Please. It’s just a word.”

She opened her mouth to respond when Louis heard Chopin emerge from her pocket. The sound of Chopin, not the actual Chopin, thank God.

Lottie picked up her phone and mouthed _Mom_ to me, then pointed at the glass wall that housed the administration office of Croyden Academy.

“Go,” she said, and Louis did.

Without his sister distracting him, Louis was able to fully absorb the campus in its immaculate, over landscaped splendor. Fat blades of emerald grass anchored the grounds, clipped within a millimeter of uniformity. A sprawling courtier divided the campus into blooming, flower-framed quadrants. One section houses the gaudily becolumned library, another the cafeteria and windowless gymnasium. The classrooms and administration office dominated the last two quadrants. Open-air archways and brick paths connected the structures and leg to a gurgling fountain in the center of the lawn.

Louis half-expected to see woodland creatures burst forth from the buildings and break into song. Everything about the place shrieked _WE ARE PERFECT HERE AND YOU WILL BE TOO!_ No wonder Louis’ mother chose it.

He felt grossly underdressed in his T-shirt and jeans; uniforms were required at Croyden, but thanks to their late transfer their’s hadn’t arrived yet. Switching from public school to private as a junior—and in the middle of the trimester, no less—would have been torment enough without the added insult of plaid neckties and pleated pants. But his mother was a snob, and didn’t trust the public schools in such a big city. And after everything that had happened in December, Louis was in no shape to argue coherently about it.

He picked up their schedules and maps from the school secretary and headed back outside as Lottie hung up the phone.

“How’s Mom?” Louis asked.

His sister half-shrugged. “Just checking in.” She looked over the paperwork for him. “We’ve missed first period so your first class is…” Lottie fumbled with the papers and declared, “Trigonometry.”

Perfect. Just perfect.

Her eyes scanned the open-air campus; the classroom doors led directly outside, like the structure of a motel. After a few seconds, Lottie pointed to the farther building.

“It should be there, on the other side of that corner. Listen,” she said, “I might not see you until lunch. Do you want to eat with me or something? I have to speak to the principal and the head of the music department but I can find you after—”

“No, it’s fine. I’ll be fine.”

“Really? Because there’s no one I’d rather eat mystery meat with.”

Lottie smiled, and Louis could tell that she was anxious. Lottie had kept such a close eye on Louis ever since he was released from the hospital, that sometimes he forgot she was actually the younger sibling. She made sure to be less obvious about it, though, and therefore was less irritating than their mother. But as such, Louis had to work extra hard to reassure her that he would not crack today. He put on his best mask of adolescent ennui and wore it like armor as they approached the building.

“Really. I’m fine,” he said, rolling his eyes for effect. “Now go, before you fail out of high school and die poor and lonely.” He shoved her lightly, for emphasis, and they separated.

But as Louis walked away, his little facade started to crumble. How ridiculous. This wasn’t his first day of kindergarten, though it was his first day of school without Niall…ever. But it was the first of many. He needed to get a grip. He swallowed back the ache that rose in his throat and tried to decipher his schedule:

_AP English, Ms. Leib, Room B35_

_Trigonometry, Mr. Walsh, Room 264_

_American History, Mrs. McCreery, Room 4_

_Art, Mrs. Gallo, Room L_

_Spanish, Ms. Morales, Room 213_

_Biology II, Mrs. Prieta, Annex_

Hopeless. Louis wandered the path to the building and scanned the room numbers, but found the vending machines before he found his Trig classroom. Four of them in a row, pushed up against the back of the building, facing a series of tiki huts that dotted the grounds. They reminded Louis that he’d skipped breakfast. He looked around. He was already later. A few more minutes couldn’t hurt.

He set the papers down on the ground and dug in his bag for change. But as he inserted one quarter in the machine, the other one he held in his hand fell. He bent to search for it, as he only had enough money to buy one thing. He finally found it, placed it in the machine, and clicked on the letter-number combination that would provide his salvation.

It stuck. Unbelievable.

He clicked the numbers again. Nothing. His M&M’s were trapped by the machine.

Louis grabbed the sides of the machine and tried to shake it. No dice. Then he kicked it. Still nothing.

“You have an anger-management problem.”

Louis whipped around at the sound of the warm, lilting British accent behind him.

The person it belonged to sat on the picnic table under the tiki hut. His general state of disarray was almost enough to distract Louis from his face. The boy—if he could be called that, looking like he belonged in college, not high school—wore Chucks with holes worn through them, no laces. Slim charcoal pants and a white button-down shirt covered his lean, spare frame. His tie was loose, his cuffs were undone, and his blazer lay in a heap beside him as he lazily leaned back on the palms of his hands.

His strong jaw and chin were slightly scruffy, as though he hadn’t shaved in days, and his eyes looked gray in the shade. Strands of his dark chestnut hair stuck out every which way. Bedroom hair. He could be considered pale in comparison to everyone else Louis had observed in Florida thus far, which is to say he wasn’t orange.

He was beautiful. And he was smiling at Louis.

❂

 **S** miling at Louis like he knew him. Louis turned his head, wondering if there was anyone behind him. Nope. No one there. When he glanced back in the boy’s direction, he was gone.

Louis blinked, disoriented, and bent to pick up his things. He heard footsteps approach, but they stopped just before they reached me.

The perfectly tanned brunette girl wore heeled oxfords and white knee socks with her just-above-the-knee charcoal and navy plaid skirt. The fact that Louis would be wearing a variation of the same thing in a week hurt his soul.

She was linked arm-in-arm with a flawlessly groomed, fit blond boy, and the two of them in their Croyden-Crested blazers looked down their perfect noses with their perfect smattering of freckles at Louis.

“Watch it,” the girl said. With venom.

Watch what? Louis hadn’t done anything. But Louis decided not to say so, considering he knew exactly one person at the school, and they shared a last name.

“Sorry,” Louis said, even though he didn’t know what for. “I’m Louis Tomlinson. I’m new here.” Obviously.

A hollow smile crept over Vending Machine Girl’s puritanically pretty face. “Welcome,” she said, and the two of them walked away.

Funny. Louis did not feel welcome at all.

He shook off both encounters, and, map in hand, circled the building with no results. He climber the stairs, and circled it again before finally finding his classroom.

The door was closed. He did not relish the idea of walking in late, or at all, really. But he’d already missed one class, and he was there, and the hell with it. He opened the door and stepped inside.

Cracks appeared in the classroom walls as twenty-something heads turned in Louis’ direction. The fissures spidered up, higher and higher, until the ceiling began to crumble. Louis’ throat went dry. No one said a word, even though dust filled the room, even though he thought he would choke.

Because it wasn’t happening to anyone else. Just to Louis.

A light crashed to the floor right in front of the teacher, sending a shower of sparks in his direction. Not real. But he tried to avoid them anyway, and fell.

Louis heard the sound of his face as it smacked against the polished linoleum floor. The pain punched him between his eyes. Warm blood gushed out of his nostrils and swirled over his mouth and under his chin. His eyes were open, but he still couldn’t see through the gray dust. He could hear, though. There was a collective intake of breath from the class, and the sputtering teacher tried to determine just how hurt Louis was. Oddly, he did nothing but lie on the cool floor and ignore the muffled voices around him. He preferred his bubble of pain to the humiliation he would surely face upon standing.

“Umm, are you okay? Can you hear me?” The teacher’s voice great increasingly panicky.

Louis tried to say his name, but he thinks it sounded more like “I’m dying” instead.

“Someone go get Nurse Watson before he bleeds to death in my classroom.”

At that, Louis scrambled up, shifting woozily on alien feet. Nothing like the threat of nurses and their needles to get his ass into gear.

“I’m fine,” he announced, and looked around the room. Just a normal classroom. No dust. No cracks. “Really,” he said. “No need for the nurse. I just get nosebleeds sometimes.” Chuckle, chuckle. Laugh it off. “I don’t even feel anything. The bleeding’s stopped. And it had, though he probably looked like a freak show.

The teacher eyed him warily before he answered. “Hmm. You really aren’t hurt, then? Would you like to go to the restroom to clean up? We can formally introduce ourselves upon your return.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Louis answered. “I’ll be right back.” He willed hisself out of his dizziness, and snuck a glance at the teacher and his new classmates. Every face in the room registered a mixture of surprise and horror. Including, Louis noticed, Vending Machine Girl. Lovely.

Louis vacated the classroom. His body felt wiggly as he walked, like a loose tooth that could be dislodged by the slightest force. When he no longer heard the whispers or the teacher’s shaky voice, he almost broke into a run. He even missed the guy’s bathroom at first, barely registering the swinging door. Louis doubled back and, once inside, focused on the pattern of the hideous yolk-colored tile, counted the number of the stalls, did anything he could to avoid looking at himself in the mirror. He tried to calm himself, hoping to stave off the panic attack that would follow the sight of blood.

He breathed slowly. He did not want to clean himself up. He did not want to return to class. But the longer he was gone, the higher the likelihood that the teacher would sent the nurse after him. He _really_ didn’t want that, so he positioned himself in front of the wet counter, which was covered in the wads of crumpled paper towels, and looked up.

The boy in the mirror smiled. But he wasn’t Louis.

❂

 **I** t was Nick. His dark brown hair spilled over Louis’ forehead where his chestnut hair should have been. Then his reflection bent, sinister in the glass. The room tilted, pitching Louis to the side. He bit his tongue, then braced his hands on the counter. When he looked up at the mirror, it was once again his own face that started back.

His heart pounded against his rib cage. It was nothing. Just like the classroom was nothing. He was okay. Nervous about his first day of school, maybe. His disastrous first day of school. But at least he was unsettled enough that his stomach forgot to churn at the sight of drying blood on his skin.

He grabbed a handful of paper towels from the dispenser and wetted them. He brought them to his face to clean it up, but the pungent wet paper towel smell finally set his stomach roiling. He willed himself not to vomit.

He failed.

Louis had the presence of mind to push his hair away from his face as he emptied the meager contents of his stomach into the sink. At that moment, he was glad that the universe had thwarted his attempts at breakfast.

When he finished dry heaving, he wiped his mouth, gargled some water, and spit it into the sink. A thin film of sweat covered his skin, which had that unmistakeable just-puke pallor. A charming first impression, to be sure. At least his T-shirt had escaped his bodily fluids.

Louis leaned on the sink. If he skipped the rest of Trigonometry, the teacher would just rustle up a athlete posse to find him and make sure he hadn’t died. So he bravely headed out into the relentless heat and made his way back. The classroom door was still open; he’d forgotten to close it after his unceremonious departure, and he heard the teacher droning on about an equation. He took a deep breath and carefully walked in.

In seconds, the teacher was at Louis’ side. His thick glasses gave his eyes an insect like quality. Creepy.

“Oh, you look much better! Please, have a seat right here. I’m Mr. Walsh, by the way. I didn’t catch your name before?”

“It’s Louis. Louis Tomlinson,” he said thickly.

“Well, Mr. Tomlinson, you certainly know how to make an entrance.”

The class’s low chuckle hovered in the air.

“Yeah, um, just clumsy, I guess.” Louis sat down in the first row, where Mr. Walsh had indicated, in an empty desk parallel to the teacher’s and closest to the door. Every seat in the row was unoccupied, except Louis’.

For eight painful minutes and twenty-seven infinite seconds, Louis sat sweltering in the seventh circle of his own personal inferno, motionless at his desk. He listened tot eh sound of the teacher’s voice but heard nothing. Shame drowned him out, and every pore of Louis’ skin felt painfully naked, open for exploitation by the pillaging eyes of his classmates.

He tried not to focus on the assault of whispers that he could hear but not decipher. Louis patted the back of his tingling head, as if the heat of the anonymous stares managed to burn through his hair, exposing his scalp. He looked desperately at the door, wishing to escape this nightmare, but he knew that the whispers would only spread as soon as he was outside.

The bell rang, marking the end of his first class at Croyden. A resounding success indeed.

Louis hung back from the mass exodus toward the door, knowing he’d need a book and a briefing on where the class was in the syllabus. Mr. Walsh told Louis ever so politely that he was expected to take the trimester exam in three weeks like everyone else, then returned to his desk to shuffle papers, and left Louis to face the rest of his morning.

It was blissfully uneventful. When lunch rolled around, Louis gathered his book-laden messenger bag and heaved it over his shoulder. He decided to look around for a quiet, secluded place to sit and read the book he’d brought with him. His vomiting shenanigans had ruined his appetite.

Louis hopped down the stairs two at a time, walked to the edge of the grounds, and stopped at the fence that bordered a large plot of undeveloped land. Trees towered above the school, casting out building entirely in shadow. The eerie screech of a bird punctured the breezeless air. Louis was in some preppy _Jurassic Park_ nightmare, definitely. He violently opened his book to where he’d left off, but found himself reading the rereading the same paragraph before he gave up. That lump rose in his throat again. He slumped against the chain-link fence, the mental scoring marks in his flesh through the thin fabric of his shirt, and close his eyes in defeat.

Someone laughed behind him.

Louis’ head snapped up as his blood froze. It was Liam’s laugh. Liam’s voice. He stood slowly and faced the fence, the jungle, as he hooked his fingers in the metal and searched for the source.

Nothing but trees. Of course. Because Liam was dead. Like Nick. And Niall. Which meant that he’d had three hallucinations in less than three hours. Which wasn’t good.

Louis turned back to the campus. It was empty. He glanced at his watch and panic set in; only a minute to spare before his next class. He swallowed hard, grabbed his bag and rushed to the nearest building, but as he rounded the corner, he stopped cold.

Liam stood about forty feet away. Louis knew he couldn’t be there, that he wasn’t there, but he _was_ there, unfriendly and unsmiling beneath the brim of the Patriots baseball cap he never took off. Looking like he wanted to talk.

Louis turned away and picked up his pace. He walked away from him, slowly at first, then ran. He glanced over his shoulder once, just to see if Liam was still there.

He was.

And he was close.

❂

 **B** y some stroke of luck, Louis flung open the door to the closest classroom, 213, and it turned out to be Spanish. And judging by all of the taken desks, Louis was already late.

“Mister Tommy-leeson?” the teacher boomed.

Distracted and disturbed, Louis pulled the door closed behind him. “It’s Tomlinson, actually.”

For his correction or for his lateness, he’ll never know, the teacher punished him, forced him to stand at the front of the room while she fired question after question at me, in Spanish, to which Louis could only respond, “I don’t know.” She didn’t even introduce herself; she just sat there, the muscles twitching in her veiny forearms as she scribbled self-importantly in her teacher book. The Spanish Inquisition took on a whole new meaning.

And it continued for a solid twenty minutes. When she finally stopped, she made Louis sit in the desk next to hers, in the front of the class, facing all of the other students. Brutal. Louis’ eyes were glued to the clock as he counted the seconds until it was over. When the bell rang, he bolted for the door.

“You look like you could use a hug,” said a voice from behind him. He turned around to face a smiling, beautiful boy wearing an open, white button-down shirt. A yellow T-shirt that said **I AM A CLICHÉ** was beneath it.

“That’s very generous of you,” Louis said, plastering a smile on his face. “But I think I’ll manage.” It was important to act not crazy.

“Oh, I wasn’t offering. Just making an observation.” The boy pushed his wild, ink black hair out of his eyes and held out his hand. “I’m Zayn Malik.”

“Louis Tomlinson,” he said, though he already knew.

“Wait, are you new here?” A mischievous grin reached his whiskey-colored eyes.

Louis matched it. “Funny. You’re funny.”

Zayn gave an exaggerated brow. “Don’t worry about Morales, by the way. She’s the world’s worst teacher.”

“So she’s that heinous to everyone?” Louis asked, after they were a safe distance away from the classroom. He scanned the campus for imagined dead people as he shifted his bag to his other shoulder. There were none. So far so good.

“Maybe not _that_ heinous. But close. You’re lucky she didn’t throw any chalk at you, actually. How’s your nose, by the way?”

Had he been in Trigonometry this morning?

“Better, thanks. You’re the first person to ask. Or say anything nice at all, actually.”

“So people have said not-nice things, then?”

Louis thought he glimpsed a flash of silver in his mouth when he spoke. A tongue stud? Interesting. He didn’t seem the type.

He nodded as his eyes drank in his new classmates. He knew there were variants of the school uniform—different shirt, blazer, and pants/shorts options, and the sweater vests for the really adventurous. But when he looked for any telltale signs of cliques—wild shoes, or students with dyed black hair and makeup to match, he saw none. It was more than the uniforms; everyone somehow managed to look exactly alike. Perfectly groomed, perfectly well-behaved, not a hair out of place. Zayn, with his messy hair and tongue stud and expose T-shirt, was one of the only standouts.

And, of course, the disheveled-looking person from this morning. Louis felt an elbow in his ribs.

“So, new guy? Who said what? Don’t leave a fella hanging’.”

Louis smiled. “There was this girl earlier who told me to ‘watch it.’” Louis described Vending Machine Girl to Zayn and watched his eyebrows rise. “The guy she was with was equally unfriendly,” Louis finished.

Zayn shook his head. “You went near Styles, didn’t you?” Then he smiled to himself. “God, he really is something.”

“Uh…does this Styles happen to have an overabundance of muscles and wear his shirt with a popper collar with bleached blond hair? He was on the arm of said girl.”

Zayn laughed. “The description could fit any number of Croyden douches, but definitely not Harry Styles. Probably Bieber, if I had to guess.”

Louis raised his eyebrows.

“Justin Bieber, lacrosse all-star and _Project Runway_ aficionado. Pre-Styles, he and Kendall used to date. Until he came out of the metaphorical closet, and now they’re BFFs forevah.” Zayn batted his eyelashes. Louis kind of loved him.

“So what did you do to Kendall?” Zayn asked.

Louis gave him a look of mock-horror. “What did _I_ do to _her_?”

“Well, you did _something_ to get her attention. You’d normally be beneath her notice, but the claws will come out if Styles starts sniffing around you,” he said. He took a long look at Louis before he spoke again. “Which he will, having exhausted Croyden’s limited resources already. Literally.”

“Well, she needn’t trouble herself.” Louis stuffed his schedule and his map, then looked around, trying to locate the annex for Biology. “I have no interest in stealing someone’s boyfriend,” Louis said. Or dating at all, he didn’t say, considering his last boyfriend was now dead.

“Oh, he’s not her boyfriend. Styles dropped her ass last year after a couple of weeks. A record for him. Then she went even crazier—like the rest of them. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and all that jazz. Kendall used to be the abstinence poster girl, but post-Styles, you could write a comic book about the many adventures of her vagina. It could wear a cape.”

Louis snorted. His eyes scanned the buildings in front of him. None of them looked like an annex. “And the guy she was all cozy with had no problem with this?” Louis asked, distracted.

Zayn quirked an eyebrow at him. “The Mean Queen? That would be a no.”

Ah. “How’d he earn the nickname?”

Zayn looked at Louis like he was an idiot.

“I mean, specifically,” Louis said, trying not to be one.

“Let’s just say I tried to make friends with Bieber once. In the platonic sense,” Zayn clarified. “I’m not his type. Anyway, my jaw still clicks when I yawn.” He demonstrated it for him.

“He hit you?”

The fountain burbled behind us as we cross the quad, and stopped in front of the building farthest from the administration offices. Louis inspected the labels on the classroom doors. Completely random. He’d never figure this place out.

“Indeed. Bieber has a _vicious_ right hook.”

They had that in common, apparently.

“I got him back later, though.”

“Oh?” Zayn wouldn’t stand a chance in a knife fight with Justin Bieber if all Aiden had was a roll of toilet paper.

Zayn smiled knowingly. “I threatened him with Ebola.”

Louis blinked.

“I don’t actually _have_ Ebola. It’s a biosafety Level Four hot agent.”

Louis blinked again.

“In other words, impossible for teenagers to obtain, even if your father is a doctor.” Zayn looked disappointed.

“Riiight,” Louis said, not moving.

“But Bieber believed it and almost shit himself. It was a defining moment for me. Until that rat bastard tattled to the guidance counselors. Who believed him. And called my dad, to verify I didn’t actually have Ebola at home. Idiots. One little joke involving hemorrhagic fever and they brand you ‘unstable.’”

Zayn shook his head, then his mouth tilted into a smile. “You’re, like, totally freaked out right now.”

“No.” Louis was, just a tad. But who was he to be picky in the friend department?

Zayn winked and nodded. “Sure. So what class do you have next?”

“Biology with Prieta? In the annex, wherever the hell that is.”

Zayn pointed to an enormous flowered bush about a thousand feet away. In the opposite direction. “Behind the bougainvillea.”

“Thanks,” Louis said, peering at it. “I never would have found it. So what’s your next class?”

Zayn shrugged out of his blazer and button down. “AP Physics, normally, but I’m skipping it.”

AP Physics. Impressive. “So…what grade are you in?”

“I’m a junior,” Zayn said. He must have registered Louis’ skepticism because he quickly added, “I skipped a grade. Probably absorbed my parents’ short genes by osmosis.”

“Osmosis? Don’t you mean genetics?” Louis asked. “Not that you’re short.” Sort of a lie, but harmless.

“I’m adopted,” Zayn said. “And please. I’m kind of short. No biggie.” Zayn shrugged, then tapped his matchless wrist. “You’d better get to Pieta’s class before you’re late.” He waved. “See ya.”

“Bye.”

And just like that, Louis made a friend. He mentally patted himself on the back; Lottie would be proud. Mom would be prouder. He planned to offer this news to her like a cat presenting a dead mouse to its owner. It might even be enough to help stave off therapy.

If, of course, he kept today’s hallucinations to himself.

❂

 **L** ouis managed to survive the rest of the day without being hospitalized or committed, and, after school ended, Jay was waiting for him at the cul-de-sac exactly as Lottie said she would be. She excelled at those small “mom” moments, and didn’t disappoint today.

“Louis, honey! How was your first day?” He voice bubbled with over enthusiasm. She pushed up her sunglasses over her hair and leaned in to give Louis a kiss. Then she stiffened. “What happened?”

“What?”

“You have blood on your neck.”

Damn. He thought he’d washed it all off.

“I had a nosebleed.” The truth, but not the whole truth, so help him.

His mother was quiet. Her eyes were narrowed, and full of concern. Par for the course, and so irritating.

“ _What_?”

“You’ve never had a nosebleed in your life.”

Louis wanted to ask “How would you know?” but, unfortunately, she _would_ know. Once upon a time he used to tell her everything. Those days were over.

He dug his heels in. “I had one today.”

“Out of nowhere? Randomly?” She gave him that piercing therapist stare, the one that says _You’re full of it_.

He wasn’t going to admit that he thought he saw his classroom fall apart the second he walked in it. Or that his dead friends reappeared today, courtesy of his PTSD. He’d been symptom-free since they’d moved. He went to his friends’ funerals. He packed up his room. He hung out with his siblings. He did everything he was supposed to do to avoid being Mom’s project. And what happened today wasn’t remotely worth what telling her would cost.

Louis looked her in the eye. “Randomly.” She still wasn’t buying it. “I’m telling you the truth,” he lied. “Can you leave me alone now?” But as soon as he spoke the words, he knew he’d regret them.

He was right. They drove the rest of the way home in silence, and the longer they went without speaking, the more obviously she stewed.

He tried to ignore her and focus on the route home, since he’d occasionally be the one driving to school.

The houses they passed were all low-slung and blocky, with plastic dolphins and hideous Greek-style statues dotting their lawns. It was as if the city council convened and voted to manufacture Miami to be utterly devoid of charm. They passed generic strip mall after generic strip mall, all proclaiming _Michaels! Kmart! Home Depot!_ with their collective might. Louis couldn’t for the life of him fathom why anyone would need more than one set of them within a fifty-mile radius.

They arrived at their new home after a gut-wrenching hour of traffic, which made Louis’ stomach roll with nausea for the second time that day. After pulling all the way into the driveway, his mother exited the car in a huff. Louis just sat there, motionless. His siblings weren’t home yet, his dad definitely wouldn’t be home yet, and he didn’t want to enter the lion’s den alone.

He stared at the dashboard, melodramatically stewing in the juices of his own bitterness, until knock on the car door made him fly out of his skin.

He looked up and out at Lottie. The daylight had dwindled into evening, leaving the sky behind her a deep royal blue. Something inside Louis flipped. How long had he been sitting there?

Lottie peered at me through the open window. “Rough day?”

Louis tried to push his unease aside. “How’d you guess?”

Ernest slammed the door of the Civic, then walked over with Doris in tow, huge smiles on both of their faces. Ernest held his overstuffed backpack between both his arms, Doris having taking the more practical route with her Disney-themed tote bag. Louis got out of the car and ruffled Doris’s hair, earning a loud shriek and then clapped his little brother on the shoulder. “How was your first day?”

“Awesome! I made the soccer team and my teacher asked me to try out for the school play next week and there are some cool girls in my class but there’s also a really weird one who started talking to me but I was nice to her anyway.”

Louis grinned. Of course Ernest would sign up for every extracurricular activity. He was outgoing and talented. All of his siblings were.

Fizzy finally gathered all of her stuff out of the car and the five of them made their way to the house. Lottie opened the door. When they moved here a month ago, Louis was surprised to discover that he actually liked it. Boxwood topiaries and flowers framed the gleaming front door, and the lot was huge. Louis remembered his father saying that it was almost an acre.

But it wasn’t home.

The five of them entered together, a united front. Louis could hear his mother stalking in the kitchen but when she heard them come in, she appeared in the foyer.

“Loves!” she practically shouted. “How was your day?” She hugged them all, pointedly ignoring Louis while he hung back.

Ernest rehashed every detail with juvenile enthusiasm, Doris filled in the _very_ important key points that he was too excited to recall. Lottie and Fizzy both waited patiently for Mom to lob questions in their direction. Seeing an opportunity for escape, Louis detoured down the long hallway that led to his bedroom, passing three sets of French doors on one side and several family photographs on the other. There were pictures of him, his brother, and sisters as infants and toddlers, and a few obligatory, awkward elementary school photos too. After that were pictures of other relatives and his grandparents. Today, one of them caught his eye.

An old black-and-white photograph of his grandmother on her wedding day stared back at him from its gilt frame. She was sitting placidly with her hennaed hands folded in her lap, he shining, jet-black hair parted severely in the middle. The flash in the photo made the bindi sparkle between her perfectly arched eyebrows, and she was switched in extravagant fabric, the intricate patterns dancing on the edges of her sari. Though it was a huge part of his family’s history, he had never taken much time to ask about his mother’s side of the family or their culture. A strange sensation was there and gone before Louis could identify it.

Then Ernest came running down the hallway, two inched from knocking Louis over.

“Sorry!” he shouted, and raced around the corner. Louis tore his eyes from the picture and escaped into his new bedroom, closing the door behind him.

He plopped down onto his fluffy white comforter and pushed off his Vans using his footboard. They fell to the carpet with a dull thud. He stared back at the dark, bare walls of his bedroom. His mother had wanted his room light green, like his old room; some psychological nonsense about anchoring him in the familiar. So stupid. A paint color wasn’t going to bring Niall back. So Louis played the pity card and Jay let him choose an ego midnight blue instead. It made the room feel cold and his white furniture looked sophisticated in it. Small ceramic stars, moons and planets dripped from the arms of the chandelier Jay had installed, but against the dark walls, it worked. And he had his own bathroom for the first time, which was a definite perk.

Louis hadn’t hung any sketches or pictures on the walls and didn’t plan to. The day before they left Rhode Island, he dismantled the quilt of photos and drawings he’d tacked up, saving a pencil sketch of Niall’s profile for last. He stared at the solitary picture of him then, and marveled at how serious he looked. Especially compared to his giddy expression in school the last time Louis remembered seeing him alive. He didn’t see what he looked like at the funeral.

It was closed-casket.

❂

 **“H** oney? Are you sleeping?”

Louis startled at the sound of his mother’s voice. How much time had passed? He was instantly anxious. A rivulet of sweat rolled down the back of his neck, even though he wasn’t hot.

He pushed himself up on his bed. “No.”

Her eyes searched his face. “Are you hungry?” she asked. All traces of her earlier irritation with him were gone. She looked worried now. Again. “Dinner’s almost ready,” she said.

“Is Dad home yet?”

“Not yet. He’s working on a new case. He probably won’t be home for dinner for a while.”

“I’ll be in the kitchen in a few.”

Jay took a tentative step into his room. “Was the first day awful?”

He closed his eyes and sighed. “Nothing unexpected, but I’d rather not talk about it.”

She looked away and he felt guilty. He loved his mother, truly. She was devoted. She was nurturing. But in the last year, she’d become painfully present. And in the past month, her hovering was all but unbearable. The day of their move, he spent the sixteen-hour drive to Florida silent, even though it was for his benefit—he was afraid to fly, and of heights in general. And when they arrived, Lottie told him that after his release, she overheard Mom and Dad arguing about the possibility of hospitalization. Mom was for it, naturally. Someone would be watching him all the time! But Louis had no desire to study for the SATs in a padded cell, and since the effect of his grand gesture—attending the funerals—had obviously worn off, he needed to keep his crazy in check. It seemed to be working. For now.

Jay let the conversation drop and kissed his forehead before returning to the kitchen. He got out of bed and padded down the hallway in his socks, careful not to slip on the lacquered wood floor.

His siblings had set the table already and his mother was still working on dinner, so he made his way to the family room and sank into the deep leather sofa before turning on the television. The news was on the picture-in-picture view, but he tuned it out as he clicked over the programs in the guide.

“Louis, turn that up for a second?” Jay asked. He complied.

Three photographs floated in the corner of the screen. “With the help of the Laurelton Police Department’s Search and Rescue Unit, the bodies of Niall Horan and Nicholas Grimshaw were recovered this morning, but investigators are having trouble recovering the remains of nineteen-year-old Liam Payne due to the wings of the landmark that are still standing, but could collapse at any moment.”

Louis squinted at the television. “What the—” he whispered.

“Hmm?” His mother walked into the family room and took the remote from his hand. When she did, the pictures of his friends vanished. In their place was a photograph of a light-haired girl smiling happily in the corner of the screen next to the female news anchor.

“Investigators are pursuing new leads in the case of murdered tenth grader Jordana Palmer,” the female anchor trilled. “The Metro Dade Police Department is conducting a new search for evidence with a team of K-9 units in the area bordering the Palmer’s property, and Channel Seven has the footage.”

The image of the screen flashed to a shaky video of a team of police in beige uniforms, accompanied by large German shepherds patrolling a sea of tall grass that stretched behind a row of small, new houses. “Sources say that the fifteen-year-old’s autopsy reveals disturbing insights into the manner of her death, but the officials wouldn’t release any details.”

“The leads, like I said, are the result of talking to witnesses that have come forwards, and we will be following up on those leads today,” said Captain Ron Roseman of the Metro Dade Police Department. “Other than that, I can’t divulge anything that might compromise our investigation.”

The anchors then cheerily transitioned to discussing some new literary initiative in the Broward school district. Jay handed the remote back to Louis.

“Can I change it?” he asked, careful to keep his voice even. Seeing his dead friends on television had left him shaken, but he couldn’t let it show.

“Might want to turn it off. Dinner’s ready,” she said. She looked anxious, more so than usual. Louis was starting to think she was the the one who should be taking medication, and not for the first time.

Louis’ siblings pulled up to the table and he pasted on a lopsided grin as he joined them. He tried to laugh at their jokes as they ate, but he couldn’t blot out the images of Niall, Liam and Nick he’d just seen. No, not seen. Hallucinated.

“Something wrong, Louis?” Jay asked, snapping him out of his trance. The expression on his face must have matched his feelings.

“No,” he said breezily. He stood up, tilting his head forward so that his hair veiled his face. He picked up his plate and made his way to the sink to rinse it off before putting it in the dishwasher.

The dish slipped in his soapy hands and broke against the stainless steel. In his peripheral vision, he saw Lottie and his mother exchange a glance. He was a goldfish without a castle to hide in.

“You okay?” Fizzy asked him.

“Yeah. It just slipped.” He picked the shards out of the sink and threw them in the trash before excusing himself to do homework.

As he walked back down the hallway to his bedroom, he shot a look at his grandmother’s portrait. Her eyes stared back, following him. Louis was being watched. Everywhere.

❂

 **T** hat same creeping, watchful feeling escorted Louis to school the next day. He just couldn’t shake it. As Lottie pulled into the school parking lot, she said, “You know, you should think about getting some sun.”

Louis shot her a look. “Seriously?”

“I only mention it because you’re looking a little peaked.”

“Duly noted,” he said dryly. “We’re going to be late if you don’t find a spot, you know.”

Rachmaninoff slated softly from the speakers, doing nothing to settle Louis’ jangled mood.

Or Lottie’s, apparently. “I’m seriously itching to start playing bumper cars, here,” she said, her jaw clenched, Even though they left early, it still took them forty minutes to drive to school, and there was already an egregiously long line of luxury cards waiting to pull into the entrance.

They watched as two of them vied on opposite ends of the lot for the same space; one of the waiting vehicles, a black Mercedes sedan, squealed its tires as the derived propelled it forward into the spot, cutting off the other car, a blue Focus, The Focus driver pounded one long sharp note on the horn.

“Crazy,” Lottie said.

Louis nodded as he watched the driver of the Mercedes exit the car along with another passenger. He recognized the immaculate sheet of brown hair on the driver even before he saw her face. Kendall, naturally. Then he recognized the sour expression of her omnipresent companion, Justin, as he emerged from the front passenger seat.

When they finally found a space, Lottie smiled at Louis before they parted.

“Just text me if you need me, okay? The lunch offer still stands.”

“I’ll be fine.”

The door was still open when Louis arrived at AP English, but most of the seats were already killed. He sat down at one of the only available desks in the second row and ignored the snickers of a couple of students he recognized from Trigonometry. The teacher, Ms. Leib, was busy writing something on the board. When she finished, she smiled at the class.

“Good morning, guys. Who can tell me what this word means?”

She pointed to the board, where the word “hamartia” was written. Louis’ confidence grew, having already had this lesson. Point one for the Laurelton public school system. He briefly looked around the class. No one raised a hand. Oh, what the hell. He raised his.

“Ah, the new student.”

Louis really, really needed that uniform.

Ms. Leib’s smile was genuine as she leaned against her desk. “Your name?”

“Louis Tomlinson.”

“Nice to meet you, Louis. Have at it.”

“Fatal flaw,” someone else called out. In a British accent.

Louis half-turned in his seat and would have recognized the boy from yesterday immediately even if he hadn’t looked as distinctly rumpled as before, with his collar open, his tie knotted loosely around it and his shirtsleeves rolled up. He was still beautiful, and still smiling. Louis narrowed his eyes at him.

The teacher did the same. “Thank you, Harry, but I called on Louis. And ‘fatal flaw’ isn’t the most precise definition, anyway. Care to take a shot at it, Louis?”

He did, particularly now that he knew that British Boy was the notorious Harry Styles. “It means mistake or error,” Louis said. “Sometimes called a tragic flaw.”

Ms. Leib gave a congratulatory nod of her head. “Very good. I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume you’ve read the _Three Theban Plays_ at your previous school?”

“Yep,” he said, fighting self-consciousness.

“Then you’re ahead of the game. We’ve just finished _Oedipus Rex_. Can someone—not Louis—tell me what Oedipus’s tragic flaw was?”

Harry was the only one to raise his hand.

“Twice in one day, Mr. Styles? That’s out of character. Please, demonstrate your dazzling intellect for the class.”

Harry stared straight at Louis as he spoke. He was wrong yesterday—his eyes weren’t gray, they were green. “His _fatal_ flaw was his lack of self-knowledge.”

“Or his pride,” Louis volleyed back.

“A debate!” Ms. Leib clapped her hands. “Love it. I would love it more if the rest of you would look alive, but hey.” The teacher turned back to the board and wrote Louis’ answer and Harry’s on the board, under “hamartia.” “I think there are arguments to suppose both claims; that Oedipus’s failure to acknowledge who he was—to know him, as it were—caused his downfall, or that his pride, or more correctly, his hubris, led to his tragic fall. And for next Monday, I want a five-page paper from each of you with your brilliant analysis of the subject.”

There was a collective groan from the class.

“Save it. Next week we start antiheroes.”

Then she continued on with her lecture, most of which Louis had heard before. A bit bored, he took out his thoroughly dog-eared and well-loved copy of _Lolita_ and hit it behind his notebook. The air conditioner in the class must not have been working, and the atmosphere grew increasingly stuffy as the minutes ticked by. When the bell finally rang, Louis was finding for some fresh air. He sprung out of his seat, knocking it over. He crouched to life it and set it right, but his chair was already in someone’s hands.

Harry’s hands.

“Thanks,” Louis said as their eyes met.

He gave Louis the same familiar, knowing look as yesterday. Slightly ruffled, Louis broke the stare and gathered his things before hurrying out of the classroom. A throng of oncoming students jostled him and his book fell to the ground. A shadow darkened the cover before he could reach it.

“You have to be an artist and a madman, a creature of infinite melancholy, in order to discern, at once, the little early demon among the wholesome children,” he said, his British accent melting around the words, his voice smooth and low. “She stands unrecognized by them and unconscious herself of her fantastic power.”

Louis stood there staring, openmouthed and speechless. He would have laughed—the whole thing was sort of ridiculous. But the _way_ he said it, the way he was looking at Louis, was shockingly intimate. Like he knew his secrets. Like Louis _had_ no secrets. But before Louis could think of a reply, Harry crouched and picked up his book.

“ _Lolita_ ,” he said, turning Louis’ book over in his hands. Harry’s eyes wandered over the pink-lipped mouth on the cover, then handed it to him. Their fingers brushed, and a warm current coursed through them. Louis’ heart thundered so loud Harry could probably hear it.

“So,” Harry said, his eyes meeting Louis’ again. “You’re a smuthound with daddy issues?” The corner of his mouth turned up in a slow, condescending smile.

Louis wanted to smack it off of his face. “Well, _you’re_ quoting it. And incorrectly, by the way. So what does that make _you_?”

Harry’s half-smile morphed into a whole grin. “Oh, I’m _definitely_ a smuthound with daddy issues.”

“I guess you nailed me, then.”

“Not yet.”

“Asscrown,” Louis muttered under his breath as he headed to his next class. He wasn’t proud of swearing at a complete stranger, no. But Harry started it.

Harry matched Louis’ pace. “Don’t you mean ‘assclown’?” He looked amused.

“No,” Louis said, louder this time. “I mean asscrown. The crown on top of the asshat that covers the asshole of the assclown. The very zenith in the hierarchy of asses,” Louis said, as though reading from a dictionary of modern profanity.

“I guess you nailed me, then.”

Not yet.

The words popped into Louis’ mind without permission, and he ducked into his Trig classroom and away from Harry the second he saw the door.

Louis sat in the back, hoping to hide from yesterday’s states and lose himself in the incomprehensibility of the lecture. Louis cracked _Lolita_ ’s spine and hid it under his book. He took out his graph paper, then took out his pencil. Then exchanged that pencil for another pencil. Harry was getting under his skin. Not healthy.

But then Kendall primly entered the classroom, accompanied by her super blond friend, and cut off his thoughts. The pair walked in like a matched set of evil. She caught Louis staring and he looked away quickly, but not without blushing. Out of the corner of his eyes, he watched her watching him as she sat in the third row of desks.

Louis was flooded with relief when Zayn slipped into the seat next to me. Louis’ only friend at Croyden thus far.

“How goes it?” he asked, grinning.

Louis smiled back. “No nosebleeds.”

“Yet,” Zayn said, and winked. “So who else have you met? Anyone interesting? Besides me, obviously.”

Louis lowered his voice and scratched at his graph paper. “Interesting? No. Assholish, yes.”

The dimple in Zayn’s cheek deepened. “Let me guess. A certain unkempt bastard with a panty-dropping smile?”

Maybe.

Zayn nodded. “That blush of yours tells me it is decidedly so.”

“Maybe,” Louis said casually.

“So you’ve met Styles. What did he say?”

Louis wondered why Zayn was so interested. “He’s an asshole.”

“Yeah, you mentioned that. Now that I think about it,” Zayn started, “that’s what they all say. And yet that boy is drowning in pus—”

“All right class, take out your problems and pass them to the front, please.” Mr. Walsh rose, and wrote out an equation on the blackboard.

“Nice visual,” Louis whispered to Zayn. Zayn winked, just as Kendall turned to glare at Louis.

Louis’ second day passed in a sea of dreary mundanity. Lectures, homework, bad teacher jokes, homework, in-class assignments, homework. When it ended, Lottie was waiting for Louis at the campus perimeter and he was glad to see her.

“Hey, you,” she said. “Walk faster so we can have a prayer of getting out of here before the cars clog up the only exit.” When Louis complied, she asked, “Second day any better than the first?”

Louis thought about yesterday. “Mildly,” he said. “But can we not talk about me? How was _your_ day?”

She shrugged. “The usual. People are the same everywhere. Not many stand out.”

“Not _many_? So some people actually stood out?”

She rolled her eyes at him. “A few.”

“Come on, Lottie. Where’s that Crodyen enthusiasm? Let’s hear it.”

Lottie dutifully gave him the rundown of her junior class, and was in the middle of feeling Louis about a brilliant female violinist in her music study when they arrived back home. The news blared from the living room, but their parents weren’t home yet. Must be the little brother.

“Ernest?” Lottie shouted over the din.

“Lottie?” he shouted back.

“Where’s Mom?”

“She went out to get dinner; Dad’s coming home early tonight.”

“Did you do your homework? Lottie rifled through the mail on the kitchen table.

“Did you?” Ernest asked, without looking up.

“I’m about to, but nevertheless, I’m not the one engrosses in—what are you _watching_?”

“CNBC.”

Lottie paused. “Why?”

“The recap the day’s market trends,” Ernest replied, without missing a beat.

Lottie and Louis exchanged a glance. Then she held up an incredibly thick envelope with no return address.

“Where did this come from?”

“Dad’s new client dropped it off like two seconds before you got here.”

A look passed over Lottie’s face.

“What?” Louis asked her.

And then it was gone. “Nothing.”

She made her way to her room, and after a minute, Louis made his way to his, leaving Ernest to face the consequences of being caught watching television before doing his homework. He’d charm his way out of them in about five seconds.

Some time later, a loud knock startled Louis from the depths of his Spanish textbook, which he’e decided was his most hated subject. Even worse than math.

His dad peeked in through the crack in his door. “Louis?”

“Dad! Hey.”

His father walked into his bedroom, obviously tired but not at all rumpled despite spending the day in a suit. He sat down on the bed next to Louis, his silk tie catching the light.

“So how’s the new school?”

“Why does everyone always ask me about school?” Louis said. “There are other things to talk about.”

Mark feigned bafflement. “Like what?”

“Like the weather. Or sports.”

“You hate sports.”

“Ah, but I hate school more.”

“Point taken,” his dad said, smiling.

He then launched into a story about work, and midway through telling Louis about the lambasting of a clerk for wearing “hooker heels” by a judge today, Jay called them in for dinner. It was so much easier to laugh with his dad around, and that night Louis differ off to sleep easily.

But he didn’t stay asleep for long.

 

B E F O R E

 **L** ouis opened one eye when the pounding on his window grew too loud to ignore. The figure in his window brought his face up to the glass, peering. He knew who it was, and he wasn’t surprised to see him. He buried himself under the warm covers, hoping he’d go away.

He knocked on it again. No such luck.

“I’m sleeping,” Louis mumbled under his blanket.

He pounded on the glass even louder, and the old window rattled in its wooden frame. He was either going to break it, or wake Louis’ parents. Both scenarios were undesirable.

Louis inched over to his bedroom window and opened it a crack.

“I’m not home,” Louis whispered loudly.

“Very funny.” Liam opened the window, shocking me with a jet of cold air. “I’m freezing my ass off out here.”

“That problem has a simple solution.” Louis crossed his arms over his bare chest.

Liam looked confused. His eyes were shaded under the brim of the baseball cap, but it was obvious that he was scanning Louis’ nighttime attire.

“Oh my God. You’re not even dressed.”

“I am dressed. I am dressed for bed. I am dressed for bed because it’s two in the morning.”

He looked at Louis, his eyes wide and mocking. “You forgot?”

“Yeah,” Louis lied. He leaned out the window slightly and checked the driveway. “Are they waiting in the car?”

Liam shook his head. “They’re at the asylum already. It’s just us. Come on.”

❂

 **L** ouis woke in the middle of the night with a scream in his throat and an anchor on his chest, soaked in swear and terror. He remembered. He _remembered_. The flood of recognition was almost painful. Liam at his window, there to pick him up and bring him to a waiting Niall and Nick.

That’s how he got there that night. The memory wasn’t frightening, but the fact that it existed almost war. Or maybe not frightening—maybe _thrilling_. He knew with everything in him that his sleeping mind hadn’t invented it—that the memory was real. He probed the edges of his consciousness for something more but there was nothing, no hint of why they’d gone.

His veins were flooded with adrenaline and he could not fall back asleep. The dream—the memory—eat replaying itself on a loop, disturbing him more than it should have. Why now, all of the sudden? What could he do about it? What _should_ he do about it? He needed to remember the night he lost Niall—for Niall’s sake. For Louis’. Even though Jay wouldn’t agree, his mind was protecting itself from the trauma, she’s say. Trying to force it was “unhealthy.”

After the second night of the same dream, the same terror, Louis silently began to agree with her. He was a basket case in school that day, and the day after that. The Miami breeze blew hot but he felt the frigid December air of New England on his arms instead. He saw Liam at his window when he closed his eyes. He thought of Niall and Nick waiting for him. At the asylum. The _asylum_.

But with everything on his plate at Croyden, he needed, more than anything, to relax. And so it was that he focused on little details that Friday morning; the swirling column of gnats that he almost choked on when exited the Civic in the parking lot. The air swollen with humidity. Anything to avoid thinking about the new dream, memory, whatever, that had become a part of his nightly repertoire. He was glad Lottie had a dentist appointment this morning. Louis did not want to talk.

When Louis arrived at school, the parking lot was still empty. He’d overestimated the amount of time it would take to get there in traffic. Lightning flashed in distant purple clouds that spread over the sky like a dark quilt. It was going to rain, but Louis couldn’t sit still. He had to do something, to move, to shake off the memory that gnawed at his mind.

He threw open the car door and walked, passing more than a few empty, scraggly lots and some run-down houses. He doesn’t know how far he’d gone before he heard a whimper.

Louis stopped and listened for the sound again. A chain-link fence stood in front of me, punctuated by barbed wire. There was no grass, only light brown, tightly packed dirt and mud in places where the ground was wet with last night’s rain. Junk littered the space: machinery parts, pieces of cardboard, and some garbage. And a very large pile of lumber. Nails were scattered across the dirt.

Louis crept up to the barbed wire and tried to stand on his toes to see the entire expanse of the space. Nothing. He crouched, hoping to gain a different vantage point. His eyes panned over a cluster of car parts and moved across the scattered garbage to the lumber pile. The dog’s short, fawn-colored fur almost blended into the dust under the precariously stacked wood. She was emaciated, every bone in her spine protruding from her patchy coat. Curled up into a tiny ball, the dog trembled despite the oppressive heat. Her black muzzle had numerous scars, and her ears were torn, and almost invisible behind her head.

She was in really, really bad shape.

Louis looked for a way inside the yard but saw none. He crouched and called her to him in the kindest, highest voice he could muster. She crawled out of the pile and walked to the fence with halting, tentative steps, looking through the metal with liquid brown eyes.

He had never seen anything so pathetic in his life. He couldn’t leave her there, not like that. Louis would have to skip school and get her out.

That’s when he noticed the collar.

The leather collar was secured with a padlock, attached to a chain so heavy it was incredible the dog could even stand. It didn’t even need to be stake into the ground; she was going nowhere.

Louis petter her muzzle through the fence and tried to assess whether he could slip the collar over her large, bony head. He cooed to her, getting her to come closer so he could feel how tight it was, but just as he gained purchase under it, a nasal drawl interrupted the silence from just a few feet away.

“What the hell d’ya think you’re doin’ with my dog?”

Louis looked up. The man stood on Louis’ side of the fence, and he was close. Too close. It was not good that he didn’t hear him approach. The man wore a stained wife-beater and torn jeans, and his long greasy hair receded into a skullet.

What do you say to someone who’s dog you plan to steal?

“Hi.”

“I asked what you’re doin’ with my dog.” He squinted at Louis with bloodshot, watery blue eyes.

Louis tried to swallow his desire to bludgeon him to death with a tree limb and stalled, leaving his question hanging in the air. Louis’ options, being a small teenage boy and not knowing whether this asshole had a knife or gun in his pocket, were limited.

He used his best innocent-dumb voice. “I was just on my way to school and saw your dog! She’s so sweet, what kind is she?” Louis hoped this would be enough to deter him from pillaging him for breakfast. He held his breath.

“She’s a pit bull, ain’t you never seen one before?” He ejected a wad of some foul substance from his mouth onto the dirt.

Not one that skinny. Louis had never seen any dog, or any animal, that thin. “Nope. What a great dog! Does she eat much?” An obscenely stupid question. Louis’ lack of filter was going to get him killed one of these days. Maybe today.

“Whadda you care?”

Oh, well. Go big, or go home.

“She’s starving, and that chain around her neck is too heavy. She has bites on her ears and scars on her face. Is this really the best you can do for her?” Louis said, his voice growing shrill. “She doesn’t deserve this.” He was losing it.

The man’s jaw clenched along with the muscles in his body. He walked right up to Louis’ face. Louis held his breath but didn’t move.

“Who the hell d’ya think you are?” he said, his voice a raspy hiss. “Get outta here. And if I see you ‘round here again, I ain’t gonna be this nice next time we meet.”

Louis inhaled without meaning to, and a noxious odor wafted in his direction. He looked down at the dog, cringing away from her owner. Louis didn’t want to leave her, but he couldn’t see how to get around the obstacles: the barbed wire, the padlocked collar and heavy chain. Her owner. So Louis tore his eyes away and began to leave.

Then he heard a scream.

When he whipped around, the dog cowered so low she hugged the ground. Her owner held the heavy chain. He must have jerked it.

The sick bastard smiled at Louis.

Louis swelled with loathing, brimmed with it. He’d never hated anyone so much as he hated that man in that moment; his fingers itched with the violence they wanted to do but couldn’t. So he turned and ran, to give his trembling limbs some relief from the fury that boiled up from a dark place he didn’t know existed. Louis’ feet pounded the pavement, wishing they could trample the smile on that piece of filth’s face. And as the thought spiked through Louis’ brain, he saw it. The redneck’s skull caved in, leaving a gaping pulpy hole in the side of his head. A thick cloud of flies clogging his mouth. Blood staining the sandy dirt by the lumber pile in a wide, darkening pool around his body.

He deserved to die.

❂

 

 **S** weaty and breathless, Louis rounded the parking lot by the school entrance and checked his watch. Seven minutes to spare before English. He grabbed his bag from the car, sprinted to class and made it a minute before the bell rang. Slick.

Ms. Leib closed the door behind him and he settled into the nearest available desk. Harry was there, looking as bored and careless and disheveled as ever. He sat at his desk without his books or notes, but that didn’t stop him from answering each of Ms. Leib’s questions correctly when she called on him. Show-off.

Louis’ mind wandered against the backdrop of the lecture. He had to do something about the dog. Help her, somehow. He’d just started to envision a dubious plan involving wire cutters, a ski mask, and mace when the bell rang. He made his way toward the door, anxious to get to his next class, but a throbbing mass of students had already assembled in front of it, crowding the exit.

When he finally escaped the confined of the classroom, he found himself staring directly into Kendall’s face. Her nose wrinkled in disgust.

“Don’t you shower?”

He probably did smell ripe after this morning’s sprint, but he was in no mood for her garbage. Not today. Louis opened his mouth, ready to let the abuse fly.

“I vastly prefer the unshowered to the over perfumed, don’t you, Kendall?”

That voice could only be Harry’s. Louis turned around. Harry stood behind him, wearing an almost imperceptible smile.

Kendall’s brown eyes went wide. Her face transformed from evil to innocent. Like magic, only more nefarious.

“I guess if those are your only two choices, Harry, then yes. But I’m partial to neither.”

“Could have fooled me,” Harry said.

That did not seem to be the response she’d been expecting from him. “Wh-whatever,” she stammered, refocusing her gaze in Louis’ direction and staring daggers before she walked away.

Fabulous. Now she and Louis were definitely going to have a Thing.

Louis turned to face Harry. He shot an insolent smile at Louis, and he bristled. “You didn’t have to do that,” Louis said. “I was handling it.”

“A simple thank-you would suffice.”

Rain began to spatter the roof of the walkway. “I really need to get to class,” Louis said, and picked up his pace. Harry matched it.

“What do you have next?” he asked lightly.

“Trigonometry.” _Go away_ , Louis thought. _I’m smelly. And you bother me enormously._

“I’ll walk with you.”

Fail. Louis shifted his bag to his other shoulder, bracing himself for an uncomfortably silent walk. Out of nowhere, Harry tugged on Louis’ messenger bag, jerking him into a halt.

“Did you draw that?” he asked, indicating the graffiti on Louis’ messenger bag.

“Yep.”

“You’re talented,” he said. Louis looked at his face. No sarcasm. No amusement. Was it possible?

“Thanks,” Louis said, disarmed.

“Now it’s your turn.”

“For what?”

“To compliment me.”

Louis ignored him.

“We can continue to walk in silence, Louis, or you can ask me a bit about myself until we reach the classroom.”

He was infuriating. “What makes you think I’m at all curious about you?” Louis asked.

“Nothing,” he replied. “In fact, I’m quite sure you’re not at all curious. It’s intriguing.”

“Why’s that?” Louis’ classroom was at the end of the hall. Not much longer, now.

“Because most people I meet here ask me where I’m from when they hear my accent. And they’re usually thrilled to have the pleasure of my conversation.”

Oh, the arrogance.

“It’s English, by the way.”

“Yeah, I caught that.” Only ten feet left.

“I was born in London.”

Seven feet left. Not going to respond.

“My parents moved here from England two years ago.”

Four feet.

“I don’t have a favorite color, though I strongly dislike yellow. Horrid color.”

Two feet.

“I play the guitar, love dogs, and I hate Florida.”

Harry Styles played dirty. Louis smiled despite himself. And then they reached the classroom.

He darted to the back of the room and planted himself at a desk in the corner.

Harry followed him in. He wasn’t even _in_ this class.

Harry took the seat next to Louis, and Louis pointedly ignored the fir too his clothes on his narrow frame as he slide by. Zayn walked in and sat on Louis’ other side, giving him a long look before shaking his head. Louis took out his graph paper and prepared to calculate. Which meant that he doodled until Mr. Walsh came around to collect last night’s homework. He stopped at the desk Harry was now occupying.

“Can I help you, Mr. Styles?”

“I’m auditing your class today, Mr. Walk. I’m in desperate need of an Trigonomic brush-up.”

“Uh-huh,” Mr. Walsh said dryly. “Do you have a note?”

Harry stood and left the room. He returned as Mr. Walsh reviewed last night’s homework, and, sure enough, handed the teacher a piece of paper. The teacher said nothing, and Harry sat back down next to me. What kind of school was this?

When Mr. Walsh began to speak again, Louis doodled furiously in his notebook again and ignored Mr. Walsh. The dog. Harry had distracted him, and he needed to figure out how to save her.

Thoughts of the dog considered his morning. He didn’t even think about Harry, even though he stared at Louis in Trig with the single-minded focus of a kitten playing with a ball of yarn. Louis didn’t look at his once as he took notes, and didn’t notice his permanently amused expression while he fidgeted in his seat.

Or the way he ran his long fingers through his hair every five seconds.

Or how he rubbed his eyebrow whenever Mr. Walsh asked Louis a question.

Or the way he leaned his coarse cheek into his hand and just…

Stared at Louis.

When class finally ended, Kendall looked primed for murder, Zayn booked it before Louis could say a word, and Harry waited as Louis gathered his things. Harry had no things. No notebooks. No books. No bag. It was bizarre. Louis’ confusion must have shown on his face because that delinquent grin was back.

Louis resolved to wear something yellow the next time he saw him. Yellow from head to toe, if he could manage it.

They walked in silence until swinging door ahead caught Louis’ eye.

The bathroom. An ingenious idea.

When they reached it, Louis turned to Harry.

“I’m going to be in here for a while. You probably don’t want to wait.”

Louis only briefly caught the horrified expression on Harry’s face before he pushed open the door with overwhelming force. Win.

There were a few guys in the bathroom of indeterminate age, but they paid no attention to him as they left. He was glad to get away from Harry, so he stifled the part of him that wanted to know his favorite song to play on guitar. Zayn had warned Louis about this nonsense; Harry was toying with him, and he’d be foolish to forget it.

And none of this was important. The dog was important. During Trig, while ignoring Harry, Louis had decided to call Animal Control and file a complaint against Abuser Douche. Louis took out his phone. Surely someone would be sent to follow up on his complaint, and see that the dog was on the brink of death. Then they’d get her out of there.

Louis dialed information, asking for the number of the city’s Animal Control office and scribbled it down on his hand. The phone rang three times before a female voice answered.

“This is Animal Control Officer Diaz, can I help you?”

“Yes, I am calling to complain about a neglected dog.”

It was impossible to sit still during the rest of the day, knowing that after school he had to check on the dog to make sure she was safe. Louis fidgeted in his chair in every class, earning him extra homework in Spanish.

When school ended, he flew down the slick stairs and almost broke his neck. The rain had stopped, for now, but it had infiltrated the covered walkways, making his progress treacherous. Louis was halfway to the parking lot when his phone rang; it wasn’t a number he recognized, and he needed to concentrate on his footing anyway. He ignored it and jogged in the direction of the dog’s house. But lights flashed ahead as he rounded the corner. His stomach flip-flopped. It could still be a good sign. Maybe they arrested the guy. Still, he slowed to a walk as he approached, his fingers trailing the crumbling wall on the opposite side of the chain-link fence. He listened to the voices and the tinny sound of the police radio in front of him. As Louis neared the house, he saw a cruised with the lights on and an unmarked car.

And an ambulance. The hair stood back on the back of his neck.

When Louis reached the yard, the front door of the house was open. People stood next to the cars by the quiet ambulance. His eyes scanned the property, looking for the dog, but as they reached the lumber pile, his blood froze.

You couldn’t see his mouth at all, with the teeming mass of flies bubbling over it and the side of the pulpy mess that had been the man’s scalp. The ground under his caved-in-head was completely black, and the stain blossomed red at the edges of his dingy wife-beater.

The dog’s owner was dead. Exactly as Louis had imagined it.

❂

 **T** he trees, sidewalk, and the flashing lights spun around Louis as he felt it: the first unmistakable snarl in the delicate fabric of his sanity.

He laughed. It was that crazy.

Then he threw up.

Large hands grabbed Louis’ shoulders. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a woman in a suit and a man in a dark uniform approach, but they were out of focus. Whose hands were on him?

“Great, just great. Get him out of here, Gadsen!” the female voice said. She sounded so far away.

“Shut it, Foley. You could have set up a perimeter just as easily,” said the man’s voice from behind Louis. He spun Louis around as he wiped his mouth. The man was in a suit. “What’s your name?” he asked, with authority.

“L-Louis,” he stammered. He could barely hear himself.

“Can you bring the EMTs over here?” he shouted. “He might be in shock.”

Louis snapped to attention. No paramedics. No hospitals.

“I’m fine,” Louis said, and willed the trees to stop dancing. He took a few deep breaths to steady himself. Was this even happening?

“I’ve just never seen a dead body before.” Louis said it before he even realized it was true. He hadn’t seen Ed, Nick, and Liam at their funerals. There wasn’t enough of them left to see.

“Just to take a look,” the man said. “While I ask you some questions, if that’s all right.” He signaled to the EMT.

Louis knew it wasn’t a fight he could win. “Okay,” he said. He closed his eyes but still saw the blood. And the flies.

But where was the dog?

Louis opened his eyes and looked for her, but didn’t see her anywhere.

The EMT approached him and he tried to focus on not appearing insane. He breathed slowly and evenly as the EMT flashed his penlight in both of his eyes. He looked Louis over, but just as he seemed to be wrapping it up, Louis overheard the female detective speak.

“Where the hell is Diaz?”

“She said she’ll be here soon.” The voice bellower to the man who’d been talking to Louis a minute ago.

“You want to go and tie up that dog better?”

“Uh, no?”

“I didn’t want to touch it,” the woman said. “I could see the fleas crawling in its fur.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, Miami’s finest.”

“Go to hell, Gadsen.”

“Calm down. The dog’s not going anywhere. It can barely walk, let alone run away. Not that it matters. It’s a pit bull, they’re just going to euthanize it.”

What?

“There’s no _way_ that dog did it. The guy tripped and cracked his skull open on the stake by the lumber pile—see? Don’t even need to wait for the techs to tell us that.”

“I didn’t say the dog did it. I just said they’re going to euthanize it anyway.”

“Shame.”

“Least it’ll be put out of its misery.”

After everything she’d been through, the dog was going to be put to sleep. Killed.

Because of Louis.

Louis felt sick again. His hand trembled as the EMT took his pulse.

“How are you feeling now?” he asked in a quiet voice. His eyes were kind.

“Fine,” Louis lied. “Really. I’m all right now.” He hoped that saying it would be enough to convince the EMT that it was actually true.

“Then we’re all done. Detective Gadsen?” The male detective and the suited woman made their way over to them, and the man, Detective Gadsen, thanked the EMT as he headed back to the ambulance. Other people milled about around it, some in uniform and some not, and a truck had pulled up, with the words **MEDICAL EXAMINER** stenciled on the back. A slimy fear coated Louis’ tongue.

“Louis, is it?” Detective Gadsen asked him as his partner took out her notepad. Louis nodded. “What’s your last name?”

“Tomlinson,” Louis answered. The detective’s partner wrote it down. The armpits of her tan suit were darkened with sweat. So were the detective’s. But for the first time in Miami, Louis wasn’t hot. He shivered.

“What brought you here this afternoon, Louis?” he asked.

“Um.” Louis swallowed. “I was the one who called in the complaint about the dog.” No point lying about that. He left his name and phone number with the Animal Control office.

The detective’s eyes didn’t waver from Louis’ face, but Louis noticed a change in his expression. He waited for Louis to continue.

Louis cleared his throat. “I just wanted to stop by after school and see if Animal Control had picked her up.”

At that, the detective nodded. “Did you see anyone else when you were here this morning?”

Louis shook his head.

“Where do you go to school?” he asked.

“Croyden.”

The female detective wrote that down too. Louis hated when she did that.

He asked Louis a few more questions, but he couldn’t keep his eyes from searching for the dog. The body must have been moved while Louis was being examined, because it was now gone. A metallic door slammed shut, and Louis jumped. He hadn’t noticed that Detective Gadsen had stopped speaking. He was waiting for Louis to say something.

“Sorry,” Louis said, as a few fat raindrops pelted the metal and tin scraps like bullets. It was going to pour again, and soon. “I didn’t hear you.”

Detective Gadsen studied his face. “I said my partner will walk you back to campus.” The female detective looked like she wanted to go inside the house.

“I’m really fine.” Louis smiled, demonstrating just how fine he was. “It’s not far at all. But thank you anyway,” he said.

“I’d be must more comfortable if—”

“He said he’s fine, Vince. Come and take a look at this, will you?”

Detective Gadsen eyed Louis carefully. “Thanks for calling it in.”

Louis shrugged. “I had to do something.”

“Of course. If you remember anything else,” the detective said handing Louis his business card, “call me anytime.”

“I will. Thank you.” Louis walked away, but when he turned the corner, he leaned against the cool stucco wall and listened.

One pair of footsteps crunched on gravel, soon accompanied by a second. The detectives talked to each other, and a third voice joined them, one he didn’t remember hearing. Someone must have been in the house before Louis got there.

“Best guess, he died about seven hours ago.”

“So around nine a.m., then?”

Nine. Just a few minutes after Louis had left him. He couldn’t swallow, his throat was so dry.

“That’s my guesstimate. The heat and the rain don’t help. You know how it is.”

“I know how it is.”

Louis heard something then about temp and lividity and tripping and trajectories over the loud rush of blood pounding in his ears. When the footsteps and voices faded away, he chanced a peek around the wall.

They were gone. Inside the house, possibly? And from the angle, he could see the dog. He dodged garbage and car parts, stepping as gingerly as he could, grateful for the rain that masked the sound of his steps. But if anyone in the house was paying attention, Louis would probably be heard. And he’d definitely be seen. When he reached the dog, the sky opened vengefully as he knelt and untied her lead from the tire. He tugged on it lightly. “Come, he whispered by her ear.

The dog didn’t move. Maybe she couldn’t. Her neck was raw and seeping where they cut away the heavy collar and Louis didn’t want to pull on it. But then the voices grew louder as they approached Louis. He had no time.

He snaked one arm under the dog’s ribs and lifted her into a standing position. She was weak, but stayed up. He whispered to her again and pushed gently on her rump to urge her forward. She took a step, but went to farther. Louis’ cells buzzed with panic.

So he lifted her into his arms. She wasn’t as heavy as she should have been, but she was still heavy. He lurched forward, taking huge strides until they were out of the yard. Sweat and rain slicked his hair to his forehead and his neck. He was panting by the time they rounded the block. His knees shook as he set her down.

He wasn’t sure he could carry her all the way back to his and Lottie’s car. And what would he do then? He hadn’t thought that far ahead, but now the enormity of the situation he’d stepped in hit him. The dog needed a vet. Louis had no money. His parents weren’t animal people. He’d stolen something from a crime scene.

A crime scene. An image of the bight watermelon insides of the man’s skull spilling over into the dirt appeared again in his mind. The man was definitely dead. Only hours after Louis wished it. Exactly the way he wished it.

A coincidence. Had to be.

 _Had_ to be.

The dog whined, snapping Louis back to reality. He reached down to pet her and took a tentative step forward, careful not to let the leash rub against her neck. It looked so painful.

Louis urged her forward and reached into his pocket for his phone. He had one new voice message. From his mother, at her new office. He couldn’t call her back yet; he needed to get the dog to an animal hospital. He’d call 411 to find a vet close by. Then he’d figure out how to break the news to his parents that—surprise!—they have a dog. They had to take pity on their screwed-up daughter and her pathetic companion. He was not above milking his tragedy for a higher purpose.

The rain stopped again as suddenly as it had started, leaving only a fine mist in its wake. And as they turner the corner before the parking lot, Louis noticed the particular lope of a particular boy as he headed in his direction. He rake those fingers through his rain-drenched hair and fiddled with something in his shirt pocket. Louis tried to duck behind the nearest parker car to avoid him, but the dog barked at that exact second. Busted.

“Louis,” he said as he approached them. He inclined his head and the shadow of a smile made his eyes crinkle at the corners.

“Harry,” Louis replied, in the flattest voice he could muster. Louis kept walking.

“You going to introduce me to your friend?” His clear gaze settled on the dog. His jaw tightened as he took in the details—he knobby spine, her patchy fur, her scars—and for a second he looked coldly, quietly furious. But then it was replaced by a careful blankness.

Louis tried to appear casual, like he always went on his afternoon constitutional in the rain, accompanied by an emaciated animal. “I’m otherwise occupied, Harry.” Nothing to see here.

“Where are you going?”

There was an edge to his voice that Louis didn’t like. “My God, you’re like the plague.”

“A masterfully crafted, powerfully understated, and epic parable of timeless moral resonance? Why, thank you. That’s one of the nicest things anyone’s ever said to me,” Harry said.

“The disease, Harry. Not the book.”

“I’m ignoring that qualification.”

“Can you ignore it while getting out of my way? I have to find a vet.”

Louis lowered his eyes to the dog. She was staring at Harry, and weakly wagged her tail as he leaned down to pet her.

“For the dog I found.” Louis’ heart pounded as his tongue formed his lie.

Harry raised an eyebrow at him, then checked his watch. “It’s your lucky day. I know a vet six minutes from here.”

Louis hesitated. “Really?” How random.

“Really. Come along. I’ll drive you.”

Louis debated the situation. The dog needed help, and badly. And she’d get looked at much, much sooner if Harry drove. With Louis’ sense of direction, he could end up driving aimlessly around South Miami until four in the morning.

He would go with Harry. “Thanks,” he said and nodded at him. Harry smiled, and the three of them walked over to his car. A Prius.

Harry opened the back door, took the leash from his hands and, despite the dog’s patchy coat and the fact that she was infested with fleas, scooped her up and placed her on the upholstery.

If she peed all over his car, Louis would die. He had to warn him.

“Harry,” he said, “I just found her two minutes ago. She’s…a stray, and I don’t know anything about her or if she’s house-broken or anything and I don’t want her to rui—”

Harry placed his forefinger above Louis’ upper lip and his thumb below his bottom lip and applied the slightest pressure, cutting him off. Louis felt lightheaded, and his eyelids might have fluttered closed. So embarrassing. He wanted to kill himself a little.

“Shut up,” Harry said quietly. “It doesn’t matter. Let’s just get her checked out, all right?”

Louis nodded feebly, his pulse galloping in his veins. Harry walked over to the passenger side and opened the car door for him. Louis climbed in.

❂

 **L** ouis settled into the seat, acutely aware of his proximity to him. Harry fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, then a lighter. Louis spoke before he could help himself.

“You _smoke_?”

Harry flashed a small, mischievous smile at him. “Would you like one?” he asked.

Whenever he arched his eyebrows like that, his forehead creased in the most appealing way.

There was something wrong with Louis, absolutely. He chalked it up to his deteriorating sanity and avoided his eyes.

“No, I would not like one. Cigarettes are disgusting.”

Harry placed the pack back in the top pocket of his shirt. “I don’t have to smoke if it bothers you,” he said, but the way he said it set Louis on edge.

“It doesn’t bother _me_ ,” Louis said. “If _you_ don’t mind looking forty years old at twenty, smelling like an ashtray, and getting lung cancer, why should I?” The words tumbled out of his mouth. So obnoxious, but he couldn’t help it; Harry brought out the worst in him. Feeling a tad guilty, he snuck a glance at him to see if he was annoyed.

Of course not. He just looked amused.

“I find it hilarious that whenever I light up, Americans look at me like I’m going to urinate on their children. And thanks for your concern, but I’ve never been ill a day in my life.”

“How nice for you.”

“It is nice, yes. Now, do you mind if I drive this starving dog in the back of my car to the veterinarian?”

And the guilt was gone. A rush of heat spread from Louis’ cheeks to his collarbone. “I’m sorry, is driving and talking too complicated? No problem, I’ll shut up.”

Harry opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it again and shook his head. He pulled out of the parking lot and they sat in awkward silence for nine minutes, thanks to a train.

When they reached the vet’s office, Harry left the car and started walking to the passenger side. Louis flung his door open, just in case he had a mind to open it. Harry’s coltish gait didn’t change; instead, he opened the back door and reached for the dog. The upholstery was mercifully free of canine bodily fluids as he lifted the dog out. But instead of placing her on the ground, Harry carried her all the way to the door of the building. She nuzzled into his chest. Traitor.

As we neared the door, he asked Louis what her name was.

Louis shrugged. “I have no idea. I told you, I found her ten minutes ago.”

“Yes,” Harry said, cocking his head to one side. “You did tell me that. But they’re going to need a name to register her under.”

“Well, pick one, then.” Louis shifted his weight from foot to foot, growing nervous. He didn’t have a clue how he was going to pay for the vet visit, or what he would say once they went inside.

“Hmm,” Harry murmured. He looked at the dog with a serious expression. “What’s your name?”

Louis threw his head back in exasperation. He just wanted to get this over with.

Harry ignored him, taking his sweet time. After an eternity, he smiled. “Mabel. Your name is Mabel,” he told the dog.

She didn’t even look up at him; she was still curled up comfortably in his arms.

“Can we go in now?” Louis said.

“You’re a piece of work,” Harry declared. “Now be a gentleman and open the door for me. My hands are full.”

Louis complied, sulking the whole time.

When they walked in, the receptionist’s eyes widened as she took in the dog’s appearance. She rushed off to get the vet and Louis’ mind raced, trying to think of what he could possibly say to finagle treatment for the dog without having to pay for it. A cheerful voice from the other side of the large waiting area startled Louis from his scheming.

“Harry!” A petite woman emerged from one of the examining rooms. Her face was pleasant, alight with surprise. “What are you doing here?” she asked, beaming at him as he bent over and kissed both of her cheeks. Curious.

“Hello, Mum,” Harry said. “This is Mabel.” He nodded down at the dog tucked into his arms. “My schoolmate Louis found her near campus.”

It took a conscious exertion of will for Louis to nod his head. Harry’s smile suggested that he noticed his bewilderment and enjoyed it.

“I’m going to take her in the back to weigh her.”

She motioned to the veterinary assistant, who gently extracted the dog from Harry’s arms. Then it was just Louis and Harry in the waiting area. Alone.

“So,” Louis stated. “You didn’t think to mention that your mother was the vet?”

“You never asked,” he said. He was right, of course. But still.

When his mother came back into the room, she outlined the various treatments she was going to administer, which included keeping the dog over the weekend for observation. Louis silently thanked the heavens. That would buy him some time to figure out what he was going to do with her.

After she finished ticking off a list of Mabel’s ailments, Harry’s mother looked at Louis expectantly. Guess he couldn’t delay the payment discussion any further.

“Umm, Dr. Styles?” Louis hated the sound of his voice. “I’m sorry, I don’t—I don’t have any money with me, but if the receptionist can give me an estimate, I can get to the bank and—”

Dr. Styles cut him off with a smile. “That won’t be necessary, Louis. Thank you for…catching her, did you say?”

Louis swallowed and his eyes flicked to his shoes before he met her gaze. “Yes. I found her.”

Dr. Styles looked skeptical, but she smiled. “Thank you for bringing her in. She wouldn’t have lasted much longer.”

If she only knew. An image of her owner’s body lying on blood-darkened mud flickered in Louis’ mind again, and he tried not to let it show in his face. He thanks Harry’s mother profusely and then he and Louis headed back to the car. Harry’s stride was twice as long as Louis’ and he got there first, opening the passenger door for him.

“Thanks,” Louis said, before glancing at his smug, self-satisfied expression. “For everything.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, his voice laced with obnoxious triumph. As expected. “Now, are you going to tell me how you really found the dog?”

Louis turned away from his stare. “What are you talking about?”

He hoped Harry wouldn’t notice that he couldn’t look him in the eye.

“You were walking Mabel on a slip lead when I saw you. There’s no way she was wearing that, from the wounds on her neck. Where’d you get it?”

Being trapped, he did what any self-respecting liar would do. He changed the subject. His eyes fell on Harry’s clothes.

“Why do you always look like you just rolled out of bed?”

“Because I usually have.” And the way he raised his eyebrow at him made Louis blush.

“Classy,” Louis said.

Harry leaned back and laughed. The sound was raucous. Louis loved it immediately, then mentally flogged himself for the thought. But his eyes crinkled at the corners and his smile illuminated his entire face. The light changed, and Harry, still smiling, took his hands off the steering wheel and reached into his pocket, withdrawing the cigarettes. He drove with his knee as he tapped one out in his hand, flicked open a small silver lighter and lit up in one fluid movement.

Louis tried to ignore the way his lips curved around the cigarette, how he held it pinched between thumb and third finger, and drew it almost reverently to his mouth.

That _mouth_. Smoking was a bad habit, yes. But he look _so_ good doing it.

“I hate uncomfortable silences,” Harry said, interrupting Louis’ less-than-clean thoughts. Harry tilted his head back slightly and a few strings of his spiking, curling hair caught a share of sunlight that filtered through his car window. “They make me nervous,” he said.

That comment warranted an eye-roll. “I have a hard time believing anything makes you nervous.” The words rang true. It was impossible to imagine that Harry was anything but comfortable, all the time. And not just comfortable—bored. Bored. And gorgeous. And Louis was sitting next to him. Close.

Louis’ pulse raced to catch up with his thoughts. There was some villainy afoot, absolutely.

“It’s true,” he continued. “I totally freak out when people look at me, as well.”

“I call shenanigans,” Louis said, as the sounds of Miami floated in through the window.

“What?” Harry looked at him, all innocence.

“You’re not shy.”

“No?”

“No,” Louis said, narrowing his eyes. “And pretending to be makes you look like a jackass.”

Harry feigned offense. “You’ve wounded me to the core with the preface characterization.”

“Pass the tissues.”

Harry broke into an easy smile as the cars in front of them lurched forward. “All right. Maybe ‘shy’ isn’t the right word,” he said. “But I do get—anxious—when there are too many people around. I don’t really like attention.” He then studied Louis carefully. “A vestige of my dark and mysterious past.”

It was a struggle for Louis to not laugh in his face. “Really.”

Harry took another long drag on his cigarette. “No. I was just an awkward kid. I remember being, like, twelve or thirteen and all my friends had little girlfriends. And I’d go to sleep and feel like a loser, wishing that one day I could grow up and just be fit.”

“Fit?”

“Yeah. Fit. Hot. Anyway, I did.”

“Did what?”

“I woke up one morning, went to school, and the girls and boys noticed me back. Rather unnerving, actually.”

His candor caught Louis a little off guard. He tried not to let it show. “Poor Harry,” he said, and sighed.

Harry smirked and stared straight ahead. “I figured out what to do with it eventually, but not until we moved here. Unfortunately.”

“I’m sure you worked it out just fine.”

He turned to me and arched an eyebrow. “The people here are boring.”

And the arrogance was back. “We Americans are so uncouth,” Louis said.

“Not Americans. Just the people here, at Croyden.”

Louis noticed then that they were back in the parking lot. And parked. How did that happen?

“Most of them, anyway,” Harry finished.

“You seem to be managing.”

“I was, but things are looking up this week in particular.”

So awful. Louis shook his head slowly, not even bothering to hide his grin.

“You’re not like the other boys and girls.”

Louis snorted. “Seriously?” And Zayn said he was smooth,

“Seriously,” Harry replied, missing Louis’ sarcasm. Or ignoring it. Harry took a final drag on his stub of a cigarette, breathed the smoke out of his flared nostrils and flicked the remains of the cancer stick out the window.

Louis’ mouth fell open. “Did I just see you litter?”

“I’m driving a hybrid. It cancels out.”

“You’re horrible,” Louis said, without conviction.

“I know,” Harry said, with it. He smiled, then reached over Louis’ lap to open his door, brushing his arm with his own as he leaned across his body. Harry cracked the door open but didn’t move away. His face was inches from Louis’, and he could see hints of gold in the green of his eyes. He smelled like sandalwood and ocean, but only faintly of smoke. Louis’ breath caught in his throat.

When his phone rang, he jumped so forcefully that his head hit the roof of Harry’s car. “Whatthef—!”

The phone continued to ring, ignorant of his pain. The lyrics of Tupac’s “Dear Mama” that Ernest had programmed for Louis’ ringtone indicated the culprit.

“I’m sorry, I have to—”

“Wait—” Harry started.

Louis’ heart galloped in his chest and only partly from surprise. Harry’s lips were inches away from his face, his phone was protesting in his hand, and Louis was in trouble.

❂

 **L** ouis mustered up every ounce of free will he had and extracted himself from Harry’s car. Louis gave him a half-hearted wave as he shut the door behind himself. Louis answered the phone.

“Hello?”

“Louis! Where are you?” His mother sounded frantic.

He turned the key in the ignition of his and Lottie’s shared car and glanced at the clock. He was seriously late. Not good.

“I’m driving home now.” His tires squealed as he reversed out of the spot, and almost hit a parked black Mercedes in the spot behind him.

“Where have you been?”she asked.

She was counting every nanosecond Louis hesitated, so he went with the truth. “I found a starving dog near the school and she was in really bad shape so I had to take her to the vet.” There.

There was silence on her end before she finally asked, “Where is it now?”

Some jerk honked behind Louis as he turned onto the expressway. “Where is what?”

“The dog, Louis.”

“Still at the vet.”

“How did you pay for it?”

“I didn’t—a classmate saw me and he took me to his mom, a vet, and she treated her for free.”

“That’s convenient,” she said.

There it was; that edge to her voice. Louis was in it, and deep. He didn’t respond.

“I’ll see you when you get home,” his mother said. Abruptly.

Louis was not looking forward to it, but he slammed on the gas at the first opportunity anyway. He dared the cops to pull him over, pushing ninety when he could. He wove in and out of lanes at every opportunity. He ignored the irritated honking. Miami was infecting him.

It wasn’t long before he pulled into the driveway at home. He crept into the house like a criminal, hoping to be able to sneak into his room without being seen, but his mother was perched on the arm of the sofa in the sunken living room. She’d been waiting for him. Lottie, Fiz, Ernest and Doris weren’t within sight or hearing. Curse them.

“Let’s talk.” Her expression was unnaturally calm. Louis braced himself for the onslaught.

“You have to answer the phone when I call. Every time.”

“I didn’t realize it was you calling before. I didn’t recognize the number.”

“It’s my office number, Louis. I told you to program it in as soon as we moved, and left you a voice mail.”

“I didn’t have time to listen to it. Sorry.”

His mother leaned forward, and her eyes searched his face. “Is there really a dog?”

Louis stared straight back into them, defiant. “Yes.”

“So if I call the vet’s office tomorrow morning and ask about it, they’ll confirm?”

“You don’t trust me?”

His mother didn’t respond. She just sat there, eyebrows raised, waiting for him to say something.

He gritted his teeth, then spoke. “The vet’s name is Dr. Styles, and her office is near school,” Louis said. “I don’t remember the street address.”

Her expression didn’t change.

Louis was sick of this. “I’m going to my room,” he said. When he turned around, she let him go.

He closed the door a bit too forcefully. Trapped in his room, he couldn’t delay thinking about what happened today any longer. Harry. Mabel. Her owner. His death.

Things were changing. Sweat pebbled his skin, even though he knew it wasn’t possible. It wasn’t _possible_. Louis was in class at nine this morning, when that bastard died. The man had to have died earlier. The coroner, or whoever he was, was wrong. Even _he’d_ said he was just guessing.

That was it. Louis imagined his conversation with him. Louis had thought the man snuck up on him too quietly, but the man didn’t sneak up on him at all. The man was already dead. The whole thing was just another hallucination—par for the course, really, considering Louis’ PTSD.

But still. Today felt…different. Confirmation that he was now crazier than he’d known it was possible for him to be. His mother worked with only the mildly disturbed, He was full on delusional. Abnormal. Psychotic.

When he joined his family for dinner that night, he felt strangely, disturbingly calm as he ate, as if watching the whole thing from a distance. Louis even manage to be polite to his mother. In a way, it was oddly comforting, the conviction of his insanity. The man died before Louis met him this morning. Wait, no—Louis _never_ met him. He invented the conversation between them to give him a feeling of power over the situation in which he felt powerless; his mother’s words, but they sounded about right. He was powerless to bring Niall back, she’d said, after Louis was released from the hospital. Right before she mentioned—pushed—the idea of counseling and/or drugs to help him cope. And of course now, he was powerless to leave Florida and go back home. But a skinny, neglected, abandoned dog was something he could fix.

So that was it, then. Louis was _truly_ crazy. But then why did he feel like there was something else? Something he was missing?

His mother’s laughter at the dinner table brought him back to the present. Her whole face lit up when she smiled, and Louis felt guilty for freaking her out. He decided not to tell her about his little adventure today; if she watched him any closer, she’d turn into the Eye of Sauron. And then she’d follow through on her threat of therapy and medication. Neither option sounded particularly appealing, and really, now that he knew what was happening, he could deal with it.

Until he fell asleep.

❂

B E F O R E

 **T** hey pulled into a long driveway guarded by a rusting iron gate. Thick branches of leafless trees twisted over the car, rasping in the wind. Their headlights provided the only light on the silent road. Despite the artificial heat, Louis shivered.

Liam put his arm around him and turned down Death Cab on the speakers. Louis looked out the window. The headlights flashed over an idling car about twenty feet away, and Louis instantly recognized it as Nick’s. The glass fogged and Nick cut the engine as they pulled up. Louis reached for the door and Liam reached for his wrist. Louis gritted his teeth. He was already on edge, and wasn’t up to fending Liam off again tonight.

Louis twisted away. “They’re waiting for us.”

Liam didn’t let him go. “You sure you’re ready?” He looked skeptical.

“Hell yes,” Louis lied. He smiled for emphasis.

“Because we can turn around if you want.”

Louis can’t say Liam’s suggestion wasn’t appealing. Warm covers usually win over midnight excursions in the freezing cold.

But tonight was different. Niall had been begging Louis to do this since last year. And now that he had Nick in his corner, Louis’ neuroses could cost him his best friend.

So instead of saying yes, emphatically yes, Louis rolled his eyes. “I said I was in. I’m in.”

“Or, we could stay here.” Liam pulled him towards him but Louis turned his head so that he caught his cheek.

“Do _you_ want to turn around?” Louis asked, even though he knew the answer.

Liam pulled away, irritated. “I’ve already done this. It’s just an old building. Big deal.”

Liam launched himself out of the car and Louis followed. Liam would be pissy later, but it was worth it. They’d been dating for only two months, and during the first one, Louis had actually liked him. Who wouldn’t? He was the picture of all-American wholesomeness. Dark brown hair, and brown eyes. Same as Nick’s. Big linebacker shoulders. And he was sweet. Syrup sweet. For the first month.

But lately? Not so much.

The passenger door of Nick’s car slammed and Niall bounded out to meet Louis, his bright blond hair fluffing-up in the wind.

“Louis! I’m so glad you came. Nick thought you’d chicken out at the last minute.” He hugged him.

Louis glanced back at Nick, still huddled by the car. His eyes narrowed slightly in return. He looked unfriendly and disappointed, likely hoping that Louis wouldn’t show up.

Louis lifted his chin. “And miss my chance to spend the night in this illustrious insane asylum? Never.” Louis placed his arm over Niall and grinned at him. Then looked pointedly at Nick.

“What took you so long?” Nick asked them.

Liam shrugged. “Louis overslept.”

Nick smiled coldly. “Why am I not surprised?”

Louis opened his mouth to say something obnoxious, but Niall took his hand which had frozen solid in the few moments he’d been outside and spoke first.

“It doesn’t matter, he’s here now. This is going to be _so_ much fun, I promise.”

Louis looked up at the imposing Gothic building in front of them. Fun. Oh, yes.

Liam blew into his hands and pulled his gloves on. Louis steeled himself in anticipation of the long-ass night to come. He could do this. He would do this. Nick had made fun of him for freaking out after Niall’s birthday party for the last time. Louis was sick of hearing about the Ouija board incident. And after tonight, Louis wouldn’t have to.

As he stared at the building, fear seeped into his bloodstream. Niall withdrew his camera from his pocket and opened the shutter, then took Louis’ right hand again as Liam moved to hold his left. Still, their company and the contact didn’t make what they were about to do less terrifying. But he’d be damned before he freaked out in front of Nick.

Nick took out his video camera from his backpack before slinging it over his shoulder. He started walking towards the building and Niall followed, pulling Louis along behind him. They reached a dilapidated fence with several **NO TRESPASSING** signs plastered along the length of the weathered wood, and Louis reflexively looked back up at the ominous institution above him, towering over them like something out of a Poe poem. The architecture of the Tamerlane State Lunatic Asylum was formidable, made more sinister by the creeping ivy that snaked its way along the front steps and expansive brick walls. The stone window facades crumbled in decay.

The plan was to spend the night in the abandoned building and head home at dawn. Niall and Nick wanted to thoroughly explore it, and try to find the children’s wing and the rooms where shock therapy was administered. According to Niall’s canonical horror literature, those would be the rooms most likely to contain any paranormal activity, and he and Nick planned to document their adventure for posterity. Hooray.

Liam inched closer to Louis, and he was actually grateful for his presence as Niall and Nick scaled the rotting wood fence. Then it was Louis’ turn. Liam gave him a lift but he hesitated as he grabbed the fragile wood. After a few words of encouragement, Louis finally hoisted himself over with Liam’s help. Louis landed hard, into a rustling pile of decaying leaves.

The easiest way into the building was through the basement.

❂

 **L** ouis knew Niall wanted to go to the asylum. But until the night after Mabel’s piece of shit wonder died, Louis didn’t remember why he agreed.

On Saturday he tried to prepare himself to dream more, to remember more—to watch him die. Louis crawled into his sheets shaking, wanting and not wanting to see him again. Louis did, but it was the same dream. Nothing new on Sunday night, either.

It was a good sign, the remembering. It was happening slowly, but it was happening nonetheless. And without a psychologist or mind-altering chemicals. Louis’ mind was obviously altered enough.

Louis was almost glad to have Mabel to wonder and worry about all weekend, even if he couldn’t bring himself to try and find out Harry’s phone number. Louis figured he’d ask him how the dog was in English class on Monday, but when he got to class, Harry wasn’t there.

Instead of listening, Louis’ mind and his pencil wandered over his sketchbook, drifting lazily as Ms. Leib collected their papers and discussed the difference between tragic heroes and antiheroes. Each time a student left or entered the room, Louis’ gaze shifted to the door, waiting for Harry to stroll in before the next bell rang. But he never did.

When class ended, Louis glanced at the drawing before closing the book and stuffing it in his bag.

Harry’s charcoal eyes squinted at him from the page, cast downward, the skin around them crinkled in laughter. His thumb grazed his bottom lip as his hand curled in a lazy fist at his brilliantly smiling mouth. He looked almost shy as he laughed. The pale plain of his forehead was smooth, relaxed mid-chortle.

Louis’ stomach churned. He flipped to the previous page and noted with horror that he’d traced Harry’s elegant profile perfectly, from his high cheekbones down to the slight bump in his solemn nose. And on the page before that, his eyes stared back at Louis, aloof and unattainable.

Louis was afraid to keep looking. He needed serious help.

He shoved the sketchbook in his bag and glanced furtively over is shoulder, hoping no one saw. Louis was halfway to Trig before he felt a light tap on his back. But when he turned around, no one was there. He shook his head. He felt strange all of a sudden, like he was floating through someone else’s dream.

By the time he arrived at Mr. Walsh’s classroom, he was surrounded by laughter. Some guys whistled when he walked in the room. Before he was finally wearing an iteration of the school uniform? He didn’t know. Something was happening, but he didn’t understand it. His hands trembled at his sides so he walled them into fists as he sat at the desk next to Zayn’s. That was when he noticed the sound of crunching paper behind him. The crunching of the paper that was taped to his back.

So someone _did_ bump into him earlier. That, at least, he hadn’t hallucinated. He reached around and pulled the sign off of his back, where the word “cockslut” was scrawled on a sheet of looseleaf. The quiet snickers then erupted into laughter. Zayn looked up, confused, and Louis flushed as he crumpled the paper in his fist. Kendall threw her head back and roared with laughter.

Without thinking about it, he unfurled one of his fists and placed the wad of paper in his flat palm.

And then he flicked it in her face.

“Creative,” Louis said to her as it hit its target.

Kendall’s tan cheeks turned red first, and then a vein protruded from her forehead. She opened her mouth to fling an insult Louis’ way but Mr. Walsh cut her off before she began. Score.

Zayn grinned and clapped Louis on the shoulder as soon as class ended. “Well played, Louis.”

“Thanks.”

Justin pushed past Zayn on his way out the door, slamming Zayn’s shoulder into the door frame. Justin turned around before leaving the room.

“Don’t you have a lawn you should be decorating?”

Zayn glared after him and rubbed his shoulder. “He needs a knife in the eye,” he muttered, once Justin was gone. “So. A-holes aside, how’s your first week?”

 _Oh, you know. Saw a dead guy. Losing my mind. Same old._ “Not too bad.”

Zayn nodded. “Big change from your old school, is it?”

When he asked Louis that, a still frame of Niall materialized in his brain. “Is it that obvious?”

“You’ve got public school written all over you.”

“Uh, thanks?”

“Oh, that’s a compliment. I’ve sat in class with these douches for most of my waking life. It’s nothing to be proud of. Trust.”

“Going to private school or going to Croyden?” Louis asked as they made their way to his locker.

“From what I’ve heard from friends at other schools, I believe this level of asshattery is unique to Croyden. Take Kendall, for example. She’s only a few IQ points above a corpse, and yet she sullies our Trig class with her stupidity.”

Louis decided not to mention that he was probably just as confounded by the homework as she was.

“The amount your parents donate is directly proportional to how much murder you’re allowed to get away with,” Zayn said as he exchanged his books. When a shadow blocked the light filtering from the midday sun, Louis looked up.

It was Harry. As always, the top button of his collar was undone, his shirtsleeves were carelessly rolled up, and today he wore a skinny, knitted tie loosely knotted around his neck. Louis could just make out the black cord that hung around his neck, peeking out from beneath the open collar of his shirt. It was a good look for him. A great look, actually, despite the shadows that stained the skin under his eyes. His hair was in its permanent state of disarray as he ran a hand over his rough jaw. When he caught Louis staring, Louis blushed. Harry smirked. Then walked away, without saying a word.

“So it begins.” Zayn sighed.

“Shut up.” Louis turned around so he couldn’t see him flush a deeper shade of red.

“If he wasn’t such a dick, I’d applaud,” Zayn said. “You could start a fire wit the heat between you two.”

“You’re mistaking bitter animosity for heartfelt affection,” Louis said. But when he thought about last week, and how Harry had been with Mabel, he wasn’t so sure if he was right.

Zayn answered with a sad shake of his head. “It’s only a matter of time.”

Louis shot him a poisonous look. “Before…?”

“Before you’re doing the walk of shame out of his den of iniquity.”

“Thanks for thinking so highly of me.”

“It’s not your fault, Louis. People can’t help falling for Styles, especially in your case.”

“My case?”

“Harry is clearly smitten with you,” Zayn said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. He shut his locker and Louis spun around to walk away. Zayn followed behind him. “And that ass don’t hurt, neither.”

Louis smirked over his shoulder at Zayn. “What’s your deal with him, anyway?”

“You mean, aside from the face that his attention already has Kendall Jenner gunning for you?”

“Aside from that.”

Zayn considered his words, the mulch crunching under their feet as they cut across one of the flower beds to the picnic tables. “Harry doesn’t date. He’ll screw you—literally and figuratively. Everyone knows it—his conquests know it—but they pretend not to care until he moves on to the next one. And then they’re alone and their reputations are shot to hell. Kendall’s a prime example, but she’s only one of many. I heard that a senior from Walden tried to commit suicide after he—well. After he got what he came for, pun intended, and didn’t call again.”

“Sounds like a _major_ overreaction on their part.”

“Maybe, but I wouldn’t want to see that happen to you,” Zayn said. Louis raised his eyebrows. “You have enough problems,” Zayn said, and a wide grin spread across his face.

Louis returned it. “How magnanimous of you.”

“You’re welcome. Consider yourself warned. Much good may it do you.”

Louis shifted his bag to his other shoulder. “Thanks for telling me,” he said to Zayn. “I’m _not_ interested, but it’s good to know.”

Zayn shoot his head. “Uh-huh. When you’re all broken-hearted and listening to sad kill-yourself music after it ends, just remember I told you so.” Zayn walked off and left Louis at the door to History. Wise were his words, but forgotten in the face of his next class.

Lunchtime found Louis once again scrounging for scraps from the snack machine. He rooted around in his bag for change when he heard footsteps approach. Somehow, he didn’t need to turn to know who it was.

Harry reached around him, brushing his shoulder as he placed a dollar in the machine. Louis sidestepped out of his way.

“What shall I get?” Harry asked.

“What do you want?”

Harry looked at him and tilted his head, and one corner of his mouth lifted into a smile. “That’s a complicated question.”

“Animal crackers, then.”

Harry looked confused, but he pressed E4 anyway and the machine obeyed. He handed Louis the box. Louis handed it back to him, but Harry laced his hands behind his back.

“Keep it,” he said.

“I can buy my own, thanks.”

“I don’t care,” Harry said.

“What a surprise,” Louis said. “How’s Mabel, by the way? I meant to ask you about her this morning but you weren’t in class.”

Harry gave him a blank look. “I had a previous engagement. And she’s hanging in. She’s not going anywhere for a while, though. Whoever let her get that way ought to die a slow, painful death.”

Suddenly queasy, Louis swallowed hard before speaking. “Thank your mom again for taking care of her,” Louis said, truing to shake it off as he made his way to a picnic table. He sat on its pitted surface and opened the box of crackers. Maybe he just needed to eat. “She was amazing.” Louis bit the head off an elephant. “Just let me know when I should pick her up?”

“I will.”

Harry loped onto the picnic table and sat beside Louis, leaning back on his arms but staring straight ahead. Louis munched next to him in silence.

“Have dinner with me this weekend,” Harry said out of nowhere.

Louis almost choked. “Are you asking me out?”

Harry opened his mouth to respond just as a group of older girls burst forth from the stairwell. When they saw him, they arrested their breakneck pace and sashayed suggestively as they walked past them, tossing a chorus of “Hey Harry”s behind them. Harry seemed to ignore them, but then, the tiniest twitch of a traitorous smile began at the corners of his lips.

That was all the reminder Louis needed. “Thanks for the invitation, but I’m afraid I must decline.”

“Already have plans?” Harry’s voice suggested he was merely waiting to hear Louis’ excuse.

Louis delivered. “Yeah, a date with all of the crap I’ve missed in school,” Louis said, then tried to recover. “You know, from transferring in late.” Louis didn’t want to talk about that now. Especially not with Harry. “The trimester exams are twenty percent of our grade, and I can’t afford to screw them up.”

“I can help you study,” Harry said.

Louis looked at him. The dark lashed that framed his bright green eyes weren’t helping Louis’ situation. Neither was the slightly mischievous smile on his lips. Louis turned away. “I do better studying on my own.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Harry said.

“You don’t know me well enough to make that assessment.”

“So let’s change that, then,” he said matter-of-factly. Harry continued to stare straight ahead as a few curled strands of hair fell forward into his eyes.

He was killing Louis. “Look, Styles—”

“We’re starting with the surname nonsense, are we?”

“Hysterical. Ask someone else.”

“I don’t want to ask someone else. And you don’t really want me to either.”

“Wrong.” Louis hopped off the table and walked away. If he didn’t look at him, he’d be fine.

Harry caught up to him in two long strides. “I didn’t ask you to marry me. I asked you for dinner. What, are you afraid I’ll ruin the image you’re cultivating here?”

“What image,” Louis said flatly.

“Angsty, solitary, introspective emotion, staring off into the distance as she sketches withered leaves falling from bare branches and…” Harry’s voice trailed off, but the look of cool amusement on his face didn’t.

“No, that was lovely. Please, continue.”

Louis rushed ahead until a girl’s bathroom appeared. Without thinking, Louis pushed the door open, planning to leave Harry outside while Louis collected himself.

But he followed him in.

Two younger girls were standing at the mirror applying lip gloss.

“Get out,” Harry said to them, his voice laced with boredom. As if they were the ones who didn’t belong in the girl’s bathroom. But they didn’t wait to be told twice. They scooted out so fast that Louis would have laughed if he hadn’t been so shocked himself.

Harry directed his gaze at Louis, and something flickered behind his eyes. “What’s your problem?” Harry asked in a low voice.

Louis looked at him. Gone was the casual indifference. But he wasn’t angry. Or even annoyed. More like…curious. His quest expression was ruinous.

“I don’t have a problem,” Louis said confidently. He took a step forward, eyes narrowed at Harry. “I’m problem-free.”

Harry’s long frame, accentuated by the spare line of his untucked shirt and slim cut pants looks so out of place against the ugly yellow tile. Louis’ breathing accelerated.

“I’m not your type,” Louis managed to say.

Harry then took a step toward him, and a deviant smile teased the corner of his mouth. Damn. “I don’t have a type.”

“That’s even worse,” Louis said, and he swears he tried to sound mean when he said it. “You’re as indiscriminate as they say.”

But Louis wanted him closer.

“I’ve been slandered.” Harry’s voice was barely above a whisper. He took another step, so close that Louis felt the warm aura of his chest. He looked down at Louis, all sincere and open and with that chaos hair in his eyes and Louis wanted and didn’t want and he had to say something.

“I doubt it” was the best he could do. Harry’s face was inches from Louis’. Louis was going to kiss him, and he was going to regret it.

But at that moment, he couldn’t bring himself to care.

❂

 **“I** heard he sent her a picture of his—oh. Hi, Harry.” The voice stopped mid-sentence, and Louis could hear the coy smile in it.

Harry closed his eyes. He stepped away from Louis and turned to face the intruders. Louis blinked, trying to bring everything back into focus.

“Ladies,” Harry said to the openmouthed girls and nodded. Then he walked out.

The girls giggled, stealing sidelong glances at Louis while they fixed their melting makeup in front of the mirror. Louis was still slack-jawed and shell-shocked, staring at the door. Only when the bell rang did he finally remember how to walk.

Louis didn’t see Harry again until Wednesday night.

Louis spent the day mildly freaked out from lack of sleep, general malaise, and angst over what had happened between them. On Monday, Harry had walked out on him like it was nothing. Like Zayn warned him he would. And he’d be lying if he said it didn’t sting.

Louis had no idea what, if anything, he was going to say to Harry when he saw him. But English came and went, and Harry didn’t show. Louis dutifully took notes from Ms. Leib and loitered outside of the class when it ended, scanning the campus for Harry without understanding why.

In Trigonometry, Louis tried to focus on the subject but it was becoming painfully clear that while he could coast in Bio, History and English, he was struggling in math. Mr. Walsh called on Louis twice in class and he gave a grievously wrong answer each time. Each homework assignment he’d submitted was returned with angry red pencil marks all over it, punctuated by a disgraceful score at the bottom of the page. Exams were in a few weeks, and he had no hope of catching up.

When class ended, an odd bit of conversation caught Louis’ attention, scattering his thoughts.

“I heard she was eaten after he killed her. Some kind of cannibal thing,” a girl said behind him. She punctuated her remark with a crack of her gum. Louis turned around.

“You’re an idiot, Jennifer,” a guy named Kent, Louis thinks, shot back at her. “Eaten by alligators, not the pedophile.”

Before Louis could hear more, Zayn dropped his binder on his desk. “Hey, Louis.”

“Did you hear that?” Louis asked him, as Jennifer and Kent left the classroom.

Zayn looked confused at first, but then understanding transformed his face. “Oh. Jordana.”

“What?” The name rang a bell, and Louis tried to remember why.

“That’s who they were talking about. Jordana Palmer. She was a sophomore at Dade High. I know someone who knows someone who knew her. Kind of. It’s really sad.”

The pieces clicked into place. “I think I heard something about it on the news,” Louis said quietly. “What happened to her?”

“I don’t know the whole story. Just that she was supposed to show up at a friend’s house and then…didn’t. They found her body a few days later, and she was definitely murdered, but I haven’t heard how, yet. Her dad’s a cop, and I think they’re keeping it quiet or something. Hey, you okay?”

That was when Louis tasted the blood. Apparently he’d chewed on the skin of his bottom lip until it split. Louis flicked out his tongue to catch the drop.

“No,” Louis said truthfully, as he made his way outside.

Zayn followed him. “Care to share?”

Louis didn’t. But when he met Zayn’s eyes, it was like he didn’t have a choice. The weight of all the weirdness—the asylum, Niall, Harry—all of it just bubbled up, trying to claw its way out of his throat.

“I was in an accident before we moved here. My best friend died.” Louis practically vomited the words. He closed his eyes and exhaled, appalled by his overshare. What was wrong with him?

“I’m sorry,” Zayn said, lowering his eyes.

Louis had made him feel awkward. Fabulous. “It’s okay. I’m okay. I don’t know why I just said that.”

Zayn shifted uncomfortably. “It’s cool,” he said. Then he smiled. “So when do you want to study Trig?”

A random segue, and a ridiculous one. There was no way Zayn would benefit from having Louis as a study partner; not when he nailed each and every question Mr. Walsh lobbed at him.

“You are aware that my math skills are even more lacking than my social skills?”

“Impossible.” Zayn’s mouth spread into a mocking grin.

“Thanks. Seriously, you must have better things to do with your life than waste it on the hopeless?”

“I’ve already learned Parseltongue. What else is there?”

“Elvish.”

“You’re like, a gen-u-wine nerd. Love it. Meet me at the picnic tables during lunch. Bring your brain, and something for it to do,” Zayn said as he walked away. “Oh, your flap’s open, by the way,” he called over his shoulder.

“Excuse me?”

Zayn pointed to Louis’ messenger bag with a grin, then strolled to his next class. Louis closed his bag.

When Louis met him at the appointed time, math textbook in hand, Zayn was all smiles, ready and waiting to bear witness to Louis’ idiocy. Zayn took out his graph paper and textbook but Louis’ mind glazed over as soon as he glanced at the numbers on the glossy page. He had to will himself to focus on what Zayn was saying as he wrote out the equation and explained it patiently. But after only minutes, as if a switch had been flipped in Louis’ brain, the numbers began to make sense. They worked through problem after problem until all of the week’s homework was finished. Half an hour for what would normally have taken Louis two and netted him an F for his efforts, and his work was perfect.

Louis gave a low whistle. “Damn. You’re good.”

“It’s all you, Louis.”

Louis shook his head. Zayn nodded his.

“All right,” Louis acquiesced. “Either way, thanks.”

Zayn bent into an exaggerated bow before they headed to Spanish. They made meaningless small talk on the way, steering clear of dead people as a topic of conversation. When they reached the classroom, Morales lumbered up from her desk to the blackboard and wrote down a series of verbs for them to conjugate. Characteristically, she called on Louis first. He answered wrong. She threw a piece of chalk at him, scattering his good mood from his lunchtime study session into a million pieces.

When class ended, Zayn offered to help him with Spanish, too. Louis accepted.

At the end of the day, Louis stuffed his now unnecessary textbook in his locker. He needed to spend some quality time with his sketchbook _not_ drawing Harry, not drawing anyone. He shifted his books to one side of the locker and searched through a week’s worth of refuse, but didn’t see it. He leafed through his messenger bag, but it wasn’t there, either. Irritated, he dropped his bag so he could focus, and it slid against the bottom row of lockers, dislodging some pink fliers taped to the metal before it hit the concrete. Still nothing. Louis started pulling out his books one at a time as raw, arctic fear coiled in his stomach. Faster and faster, he tore through his things and let them fall to the ground until he was staring at his empty locker.

His sketchbook was gone.

Tears threatened his eyes, but a bunch of students walked into the locker niche and he refused to cry in public. Sluggishly, he put his books back into his locker and removed the flier that was now stuck to the front of his math textbook. A costume party on South Beach hosted by one of Croyden’s elite, in honor of the teach workday tomorrow. He didn’t bother reading the rest of the details before letting it fall to the ground again. Not his scene.

None of this was making any sense. Not Florida and its hordes of tan blonds and mosquitoes. Not Croyden and its painfully generic student body. Louis had made a friend in Zayn, but he missed Niall. And he was gone.

Screw it. He ripped a flier off of another locker and shoved it in his messenger bag. He needed a party. He jogged to the back gate to meet Lottie. She looked uncharacteristically cool in the Croyden uniform, and happy until she saw me—then her face transformed into a mask of sisterly concern.

“You’re looking unusually glum this afternoon,” she said.

Louis got in the car. “I lost my sketchbook.”

“Oh,” she said. And after a beat, “Was there anything important in it?”

Other than the several detailed sketches of the most infuriatingly beautiful person in their school? No, not really.

Louis changed the subject. “What were you looking so happy about before I curdled your good mood?”

“Did I look happy? I don’t remember looking happy,” she said. She was stalling. And speeding. Louis glanced at the odometer; she was doing over fifty miles per hour before they got to the highway. Living dangerously for Lottie. Very suspicious.

“You looked happy,” he said to her. “Spill.”

“I’m going to the party tonight.”

He did a double take. It definitely wasn’t _Lottie’s_ scene. “Who are you going with?”

She blushed and shrugged. No way. Did his sister have a…crush?

“Who?!” Louis demanded.

“The violinist. Selena.”

Louis stared at her, mouth agape.

“It’s not a date,” she added immediately. “I’m just meeting her there.”

The beginnings of an idea sprouted as they turned off the highway. “Mind if I tag along?” Louis asked. Now it was Lottie’s turn to double take. “I promise not to interfere with your amorous advances.”

“You know, I was going to say yes, but now…”

“Oh, come on. I just need a ride.”

“All right. But who are _you_ going to see, pray tell?”

Huh. Louis hadn’t planned to see anyone. He just wanted to dance and sweat and forget and—

“What the hell?” Lottie whispered, as they rounded the corner of their street.

A massive gathering of news vans and people lines the pavement in front of their driveway. Lottie and Louis looked at each other, and he knew they shared the same thought.

Something was wrong.

❂

 **T** he sea of reporters parted for the car as Lottie pulled it into the driveway. They peered at them as they rolled by; the cameramen seemed to be packing up their equipment, and the satellites on the vans had been retracted into the vehicles. Whatever had happened, they were getting ready to leave.

As soon as Lottie came to a stop, Louis rocketed out of the car toward the front door, passing both his mother and father’s car. His father’s car. Which didn’t belong here this early.

Louis was ready to be sick when he finally burst into the house with Lottie behind him. Electronic machine gunfire and video game music met his ears, and the familiar shape of their little brother and sister’s heads stared up at the screen from their cross-legged position on the floor. Louis closed his eyes and breathed through flared nostrils, trying to slow his heart before it exploded in his chest.

Lottie was the first to speak. “What the hell is going on?”

Ernest half-turned to look at Lottie, annoyed at the interruption. “Dad took on some kind of big case.”

“Can you turn that off?”

“One sec, I don’t want to die.” Ernest’s avatar bludgeoned a mustachioed villain into a thick, oozing puddle of goo.

Their parents appeared soundlessly in the door frame of the kitchen.

“Turn it off, you two.” Their mom sounded exhausted.

“What’s happening?” Lottie asked.

“A case of mine is going to trial soon,” their father said, “and I was announced as the defendant’s new counsel today.”

A shadow of comprehension passed over Lottie’s face, but Louis didn’t get it.

“We just moved here,” Louis said. “Isn’t that, like, usually fast?”

Their mother and father exchanged a look. There was definitely something he was missing.

“What? What’s going on?”

“I took over the case for a friend of mine,” their father said.

“Why?”

“He withdrew.”

“Okay.”

“Before we moved here.”

Louis paused to absorb what he was hearing. “So you had the case before we moved to Florida.”

“Yes.”

That shouldn’t matter, unless…

Louis swallowed, and asked the question he already knew the answer to. “What is it? What case?”

“The Palmer murder.”

Louis massaged his forehead. No big deal. His father had defended murder cases before, and Louis tried to calm the nausea that unsettled his stomach. His mother started assembling ingredients from the pantry for dinner, and for no reason, no good reason at all, Louis pictured human body parts on a plate.

He shook his head to clear it. “Why didn’t you tell us?” he asked his father. Then glanced at Lottie, wondering why she was so quiet.

She avoided Louis’ gaze. Ah. They didn’t tell _him_.

“We didn’t want you to have to worry about it. Not after—,” his father started, then stopped. “But now that things are heating up, I guess it’s better this way. You remember my friend Nathan Gold?” he asked Louis.

Louis nodded.

“When he found out we were moving, he asked me to take the case for him. I’m going to be doing some press conferences over the next couple of weeks. I don’t know how they got the address here—I should have had Gloria send out a release about the substitution before it leaked,” he said, mostly to himself.

And that was all fine, but Louis hated that they were treating him like some delicate, fragile thing. And let’s be honest; it probably wasn’t “they.” He had no doubt his mother, as his unofficial treating psychologist, was responsible for the information that did and did not flow his way.

Louis turned to her. “You could have told me, you know.” She silently hid behind the open refrigerator. Louis talked to her anyway. “I miss my friends and yeah, it’s messed-up that this girl died, but it has nothing to do with what happened to Niall. You don’t have to keep me in the dark about stuff like this. I don’t understand why you’re treating me like I’m two.”

“Ernest and Doris, go do your homework. You too, Fiz,” their mother said.

Ernest had been inching his way back into the living room, having almost reached the controller by the time she said his name.

“But there’s no school tomorrow.”

“Then go to your rooms.”

“What did I do?” the twins whined.

“Nothing, I just want to talk to your brother for a minute.”

“Mom,” Lottie interrupted.

“Not now, Charlotte.”

“You know what, Mom? Talk to Lottie,” Louis said. “I have nothing else to say.”

His mother didn’t speak. She looked tired; beautiful, as usual, but tired. The recessed lighting haloed her dark hair.

After a pause, Lottie spoke again. “So there’s a party tonight and—”

“You can go,” their mother said.

“Thanks. I thought I’d take Louis with me.”

Their mother turned her back to Louis and gave Lottie her full attention. Lottie made eye contact with Louis over her shoulder and shrugged, as if to say, _It’s the least I can do_.

Their mother hesitated before saying, “It’s a school night.” Of course that only bothered her with _Louis_ was the subject of the conversation.

“There’s no school tomorrow,” Lottie said.

“Where is it?”

“South Beach,” Lottie said.

“And you’re going to be there the whole time?”

“Yes. I won’t leave him alone.”

She turned to their father. “Mark?”

“It’s fine with me,” their dad said.

Their mother then looked at Louis carefully. She didn’t trust him for a hot minute, but she trusted her perfect eldest daughter. A conundrum.

“All right,” she said finally. “Be home by eleven, though. No excuses.”

It was an impressive display of Lottie’s influence, Louis will admit. Not quite enough to make him forget how irritated he was with their mother, but the prospect of getting out of the house and going somewhere that wasn’t school did lift his mood. Maybe tonight he could actually have fun.

Louis left the kitchen to shower. The hot water scalded his thin shoulder blades, and he slumped against the tile and let the water glide over his skin. He needed to think of a costume; he did not want to be the only person wearing the wrong thing again.

He stepped out of the shower and threw on a T-shirt and sweatpants before untangling his rat’s nest of wet hair. Rifling through his dresser would be hopeless. Same with his closet.

But his parents’ closets…

He tiptoed to his parents’ room and cracked open the door. They were still in the kitchen. He began searching through his mother’s side, looking for something suitable.

“Louis?”

Oops. He turned around. The stress evident in his mother’s face, her skin taut over her high cheekbones.

“I was just looking for something to wear,” Louis said. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay, Louis. I just wish we could—”

Louis inhaled slowly. “Can we do this later? Lottie said there’s going to be traffic and I have to figure out a costume.”

His mother’s forehead creased. He knew she wanted to say something but he hoped she’d let it go, just this once. He was surprised when a conspiratorial smile slowly transformed her face.

“It’s a costume party?” she asked.

Louis nodded.

“I think I might have something,” she said. She brushed past him and disappeared into the depths of her walk-in closet. After a few minutes, his mother emerged holding a garment bag that she cradled like a small child. “This should fit you.”

Louis eyes the bag warily. “It’s not a wedding gown, is it?”

“No.” She smiled and handed it to him. “It’s a formal suit, with suspenders. Slick back your hair and throw on your dress shoes, and you can go as a mobster. Well,” she said, looking down at the bag. “Half a mobster. I misplaced the coat, but the trousers have enough give that those hips I gave you should fit perfectly.”

A smile spread across Louis’ face, matching his mother’s. “Thanks,” he said, and meant it.

“Just do me this one favor?”

He raised his eyebrows, waiting for the caveat.

“Stay with Lottie.”

Her voice was strained, and he felt guilty. Again. Louis nodded and thanked her again for the outfit before he made his way back to his room to try it on. The firm plastic of the garment bag rustled as he unzipped it, and dark, emerald green silk shimmered from inside. He withdrew the dress from the bag and his breath caught in his throat. It was stunning. He hoped it fit.

He went to the bathroom to attempt to freshen up, but when he looked in the mirror, Nick stood behind his reflection.

He winked. “You two kids have fun.”

❂

 **L** ouis shot of of his bathroom and sat on his bed, his mouth dry and his hands trembling. He wanted to scream, but he closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe. Nick was dead. He was not in his bathroom, and there was nothing to be scared of. His mind was playing tricks on him. He was going to go to a party tonight, and he needed to get dressed. One thing at a time.

He made his way back to the mirror behind his bedroom door, but stopped. There was no one there. Just the PTSD.

But why risk it?

He padded down the hallway back to his parents’ bedroom. “Mom?” he asked, poking his head in the door. She sat in her bed, legs crossed, as she typed on her laptop. She looked up. “Will you help me get ready?” Louis asked her.

Her smile couldn’t have been more enthusiastic. She ushered Louis into her bathroom and sat him down on a chair in front of the vanity. Louis tilted away from the mirror, just in case.

He felt his mother wet his hair and brush it up into a messy quiff, freezing it in place with hairspray. He’d never worn his hair like that, so he was less than optimistic about the turn-out. She tried to offer him mascara, but he stopped her. “Pass. It’ll make me feel like a clown.” When she was done, she told him to look in the mirror.

Louis smiled at her, the exact opposite of his internal reaction. “You know what? I trust you,” he said, and kissed her on the cheek before leaving the room.

“Wait a second,” Jay called after him. He stopped, and she opened her jewelry box. She withdrew a pair of cufflinks; a single emerald at the center of each stud, surrounded by diamonds.

“Oh my God,” Louis said, staring at them. They were incredible. “Mom, I can’t—”

“Just to borrow, not to keep,” she said with a smile. “Here, stand still.”

She fastened the studs to his sleeves. “There,” she said, her hands on his shoulders. “You look beautiful.”

He smiled. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. But don’t lose them, okay? They were my father’s.”

Louis nodded, and went back to his room. It was time to deal with the rest of the ensemble. He withdrew the slacks and suspenders from its garment bag. He didn’t know the proper way to apply braces, but he figured that stepping into them would be safest—that way, he could stop if they threatened to tear. To his great surprise, they slid on easily. But it caused his pants to pull dangerously tight in the back, exposing more of his figure than he was used to. Much more.

Too late now. A glance at the clock told him he had only five minutes before Lottie had to leave to meet her little nerdlet. He slipped on the shoes him mother had gotten for him two years ago, that had never been worn. They were slightly too tight but he ignore that and, balancing mostly on his toes to avoid blisters, walked into the foyer. He met Fizzy as she headed to her room.

“Ohmigod, LOTTIE! You have to see Louis!”

Blushing furiously, Louis pushed past her and stood by the front door, itching to fling it open and wait in the car for his younger sister. But she had the keys. Of course she did.

Lottie materialized from the hallway in a vintage flapper costume, costume complete with a long, draping pearl necklace and tight curls, and their mother appeared shortly after. They stood there and stared for much longer than was necessary while Louis fidgeted, feigning boredom to hide his embarrassment.

Finally, Lottie spoke. “Wow, Louis. You look like…you look like…” Her face scrunched as she searched for words.

A look passed over their mother’s face, but vanished before Louis could interpret it. “Like a model,” Mom said brightly.

“Uh, I was going to say a man of ill repute.” Louis shot Lottie a look of purse poison. “But, sure.”

“He does not, Lottie. Stop it.” The golden girl was scolded. Louis smirked.

“You look beautiful, Louis. Older, too. Lottie,” his mother said, and turned to look her in the eye. “Watch him. Don’t let him out of your sight.”

She raised her hand in a salute. “Yes, ma’am.”

Once they were in the car, Lottie put on some Indian music. She knew Louis was not a fan.

“Can I change it?”

“No.”

Louis glared at her, but she ignored him as she pulled out of the driveway. They didn’t talk until they reached the highway.

“So what are you supposed to be, anyway?” Louis asked her just to be obnoxious as they lined p behind a mass of cars, stalled and blinking in the traffic.

“A flapper.”

“Ha.”

“I’m sorry, by the way.” She paused, still watching the road. “For not telling you about the case.”

Louis didn’t say anything.

“Mom asked me not to.”

Louis stared straight ahead. “So naturally, you listened.”

“She thought she was doing the right thing.”

“I wish she’d stop.”

Lottie shrugged, and they were silent for the rest of the drive. They crept along in traffic until they finally turned onto Lincoln Road. It was really captivating. Neon lights illuminated the buildings, some sleek and some gaudy. Drag queens glittered down the sidewalks next to scantily clad revelers. Parking was impossible, but they eventually found a space near the club and paid an obscene amount of money for the privilege. As Louis got out of the car, his feet crunched on the broken glass that dusted the pavement.

He walked behind Lottie slowly and carefully, knowing that one misstep would send him hurtling town the glass-and-cigarette littered concrete, thereby ruining his normal teenager excursion. And the outfit.

They stood in line and waited their turn. When they reached the stereotypically muscled bouncer, they handed over their cash for the cover charge and he stamped their hands without ceremony. Lottie and Louis walked past the rope into the pulsing club and he could tell his confidence had worn a bit thin. In their lack of partying experiences, at least, they were equals.

The room was a wall-to-wall, throbbing mass of bodies. They writhed synchronously around them as they pushed their way in shoulder-to-shoulder. The level of undress was truly impressive; a handful of angels, devils, and fairies teetered toward the bar in stilettos, sucking in their torsos and puffing out their twinkling cleavage. Must to Louis’ dismay, he spotted Kendall among them. She had shed her usually wholesome ensemble for a staggeringly sparse angel getup with the requisite halo and wings. She overdid it on the makeup, the push-up bra, and the heels, and looked well on her way to ending up as some accountant’s midlife crisis. Louis grabbed his sister by the arm and she steered them to the other side of the bar where they were supposed to meet her crush.

As they waited, Louis recognized the song being sampled in the remix that thrummed from the speakers and smiled to himself. Lottie tapped him on the shoulder a few minutes later, and he followed her eyes until she smiled at a petite brunette girl dressed in overalls with fake greasepaint smudged on her face. She mouthed or screamed his sister’s name—it was impossible to tell. The music swallowed up every other sound in the space.

Her long hair bounced and swayed behind her back as she made her way over. When she reached them, Lottie leaned into her ear to introduce us.

“This is Selena!” she shouted.

Louis nodded and smiled at her. She was beautiful. Lottie did nicely.

“Nice to meet you!” Louis screamed.

“What?” she screamed back.

“Nice to meet you!”

The look on her face revealed that she still couldn’t hear him. All righty then.

The music changed to a slower rhythmic beat and Selena started to pull Lottie away from Louis and into the throng of people. She turned to me—for approval, he assumed—and he waved her on. When she was gone, though, he began to feel awkward. He pressed into the bar that wouldn’t serve him, with no discernible purpose or reason for being there. What did he expect? He came to dance, and he came with his sister who was meeting someone else. He should have asked Zayn. Louis was stupid. Now he had no choice but to just plunge into the crowd and start gyrating. Because that wouldn’t be weird.

He lolled his head back in hopelessness and leaned back into the dull edge of the metal bar. When he righted himself, two guys—one in a Miami Heat jersey and the other in what Louis hoped was an ironic portrayal of a perpetually shirtless, moronic reality TV person—made eye contact. Completely not interested. Louis looked away, but in his peripheral vision saw that they were edging themselves closer. Louis gracelessly darted into the crowd and only narrowly avoided being elbowed in the face by a girl attired in what could only be described as “slutty Gryffindor” apparel. So wrong.

When he finally reached the far wall, his eyes swept the crowd, absorbing the near-naked bodies and the costumes and trying to see if he recognized anyone not heinous from school.

He did.

Harry was fully clothed and, as far as Louis could tell, uncostumed. He wore dark, tight jeans and a hoodie, apparently, despite the heat. And he was talking to a girl.

A stunningly beautiful slip of a girl, all legs crowed by a tiny twinkling dress and fairy wings. She looked oddly familiar but Louis couldn’t place her; she probably went to their school. Harry listened raptly to whatever she was saying, and a semicircle of costumed girls surrounded her; a devil, a cat, an angel, and…a carrot? Huh. Louis liked vegetable girl, but the rest of them he hated.

At precisely that moment, Harry’s head lifted and he saw Louis staring. Louis couldn’t read his expression, even as Harry leaned over to the fairy and said something in her ear. She turned to look at Louis; Harry reached out to stop her but not before Louis’ eyes met hers. She giggled and covered her mouth before turning back around.

Harry was making fun of him. Humiliation spread from the pit of his stomach and lodged in his throat. Louis twisted around and pushed his way through the bodies that had encroached into his bubble of personal space. As badly as he had wanted to come tonight, he now wanted to leave.

Louis found Lottie and screamed in her ear that he wasn’t feeling well and asked Selena if she could give her a ride back. Lottie was worried; she insisted on driving Louis home but he wasn’t having it. Louis told her he just needed to get some air, and eventually she handed him the keys and let him go.

Louis bit back him embarrassment and hurried toward the exit. As he pushed through the throng, he thought he heard his name shouted behind him. He stopped, swallowed, and against his better judgement, turned around.

No one was there.

❂

 **B** y the time Louis arrived back at the house, he’d composed himself. Coming home with a tear-streaked face, and without Lottie, would not help his situation with his mother, and they were just starting to make some progress. But when he pulled into the driveway, her car wasn’t there. Neither was his father’s. The lights inside the house were off too. Where were they? Louis went to the front door and reached out to unlock it.

The door swung in. Before he touched it.

Louis stood there, his fingers mere inches from the handle. He stared, his heart in his throat, and raised his eyes slowly up the length of the door. Nothing unusual. Maybe they just forgot to lock it.

With one hand, he pushed the door open the rest of the way and stood in the door frame, peering into the dark house. The lights in the foyer, living room, and dining room were off, but a sliver of light peeked out from around the corner toward the family room. They must have left that one on.

Louis’ eyes roamed. The art was still on the wall. The antique ebony and mother-of-pearl Chinese screen was in the same place as when he left. Everything was where it should be. He inhaled, closed the door behind him and flipped on all of the front lights in quick succession.

Better.

When he went into the kitchen to get something to eat, he noticed the note on the refrigerator door.

**_Took the twins to see a movie. Be back around 10:30._ **

A glance at the clock told Louis it was only nine. They must have just left. Ernest was probably the last one out and forgot to lock the front door. No big deal.

Louis stared into the refrigerator. Yogurt. Chocolate milk. Cucumbers. Leftover lasagna. His head ached, reminding him of the one thousand pounds of hair product his mother had applied to his scalp. He grabbed a container of yogurt and a spoon, then made his way to his bedroom to change. But the second he entered the hallway, he froze.

When he had left the house with Lottie, all of the family pictures had been hung on the left side of the wall, opposite three sets of French doors on the right.

But now all of the pictures were on the right. And the French doors were on the left.

The yogurt fell from his hands, spattering the wall. The spoon clattered to the floor and the sound snapped him back into reality. He had a bad night. He was imagining things. He backed out of the hall, then ran to the kitchen and snatched a dish towel from the oven handle. When he went back to the hallway, everything would be where it should be.

He went back to the hallway. Everything was where it should be.

He hurried to his bedroom, closed the door behind him, and sank into his bed. He was upset. He shouldn’t have gone out; the part was not, in fact, what he needed. The whole thing was nervous-making and stressful and was probably causing a PTSD episode. He needed to relax. He needed to get out of these clothes.

The shoes went first. His feet were not used to that kind of torment, and once he slipped them off, his whole body sighed with relief. Everything was sore; his heels, calves, thighs. Still dressed, he padded to his bathroom and turned on the tub faucet. The hot water would unwind his muscles. Unwind him. He flicked the heat lamp on, casting a womblike, reddish glow over the white tile and sink. The roar of water drowned out his thoughts, and he inhaled the steam curling up from the tub. He began to ruffle some of the gel out of his hair, flakes of the dried product falling from his head like snowflakes. He went to the closet to slip off his clothes, but then he froze.

An opened box sat on the closet floor. He had no memory of taking it down from the shelves. No memory of ripping the tape off the flaps and opening it since they’d moved. Did he leave it out? He must have. He kneeled in front of the box. It was the one his mother had brought to the hospital, and underneath bits of his old life—notes, drawings, books, the old cloth doll he’s had since he was a baby—he found a star of glossy pictures carelessly bound by a rubber band. A few of them escaped, fluttering to the floor, and he picked one up.

The photograph was from last summer. He saw the composition of that moment as if it was happening in real time. He and Niall leaned their cheeks together as they faced the camera he held away from their faces. They were laughing, their mouths open, teeth glinting in the sun, the wind teasing the glowing strands of their hair. Louis heard the snap of his shutter creating an imprint on film, which he insisted on using that summer because he wanted to learn to develop it. Then the print went dark, leaving the two of them in white, skeletal in the negative image.

Louis place the picture carefully on his empty desk, put the box back into his closet and shut the door. When he noticed the silence, it stole the air from his lungs. He backed away from the closet and peered into the bathroom. The faucet was off. A single drop of water fell, sounding like a bomb in the stillness. The bathtub had overflowed, making the ceramic tile reflect the light like glass.

He didn’t remember turning the water off.

But he must have.

But there was still no _way_ he was getting in.

He could barely breathe as he grabbed two towels and threw them onto the floor. They darkened as they absorbed the water, and saturated in seconds. The water seeped through to his feet. The bathtub drain needed to be unplugged. He made his way over to it carefully, but everything inside him screamed _bad idea_. He leaned over the edge.

The emerald and diamond cufflinks glinted at the bottom. Louis reached to feel the ends of his shirt.

Yup, gone.

He heard his mother’s voice in his mind. _“Don’t lose them, okay? They were my father’s.”_

He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to breathe. When he opened them, he would be brave.

He tested the water with his finger. Nothing happened.

Of course nothing happened. It was only a bathtub. The pictures had distracted him and he let it overflow, then turned it off without remembering it. Everything was fine. He punted his arm in.

For a second, he could not think. It was as if all feeling beneath his elbow had been cut off. Like the rest of his arm never even existed.

Then they scalding pain clawed at his skin, his bones, inside out, outside in. A soundless scream misshaped his mouth and he struggled to pull his arm out but it wouldn’t move. He couldn’t move. He crumpled against the side of the bathtub. His mother found him there an hour later.

“How did you say it happened?” The ER doctor looked Louis’ age. He looped the gauze over the red, swollen skin of his forearm as he clenched his teeth, fighting off a scream.

“Bathtub,” Louis managed to croak. The doctor and Louis’ mother exchanged a glance.

“Your arm must have been in there for some time,” he said, meeting Louis’ eyes. “These are some serious burns.”

What could Louis say? That he tested the water before reaching in and it didn’t seem that hot? That it felt like something grabbed him and held him under? He could see in the doctor’s eyes that he thought Louis was crazy—that he did it on purpose. Anything Louis could say to explain what happened wouldn’t help.

So Louis looked away.

He didn’t remember much about the ride to the hospital, except that Ernest, Doris, and both of their parents were with him. And thankfully he didn’t remember his mother picking him up off the bathroom floor, or getting him in the car as she must have. He could barely look at her. When the doctor finished with Louis’ bandage, he pulled her into the hallway.

Louis focused on the searing pain in his arm to avoid thinking about where he was. The antiseptic smell invaded his nostrils, the hospital air leached into his skin. He clenched his jaw against the nausea and leaned against the window to feel the cool glass on his cheek.

His father must have been filling out paperwork, because Ernest and Doris sat and waisted out there, all alone. They looked so small. And still. Their eyes were downcast and their faces—God. Their faces were so scared. A hard ache rose in Louis’ throat. He had a glimpse of how terrified they must have been when he was in the hospital the last time, seeing their big brother swallowed up in a hospital bed. And now there they were again, not even three months later. It was a relief when his mother finally returned to lead him out of the room. They were all silent on the ride home.

When they arrived back at the house, Lottie was there. She rounded on Louis when he walked in the door. “Louis, are you okay?”

Louis nodded. “Just a burn.”

“I want to talk to Louis for a bit, Charlotte,” their mother said. “I’ll come to your room in a while.”

Her voice was a threat, but Lottie looked unperturbed, more worried about Louis than anything else.

His mother led the way down the hall to his bedroom and sat on his bed. Louis sat on his chair.

“I’m making an appointment for you to talk to someone tomorrow,” she said.

Louis nodded, as Ernest’s and Doris’ terrified faces appeared in his mind’s eye. They were just kids. Louis had put them through enough. And between the burn, the mirrors, the laughter, the nightmares—maybe it was time to do things his mother’s way. Maybe talking to someone would help.

“The doctor said you must have held your arm under water for a long time to get second-degree burns. And you stayed there until I found you?” she asked, her voice raw. “What were you thinking, Louis?”

His voice was laced with defeat. “I was going to take a bath, but the cufflinks—” He took a shaky breath. “The cufflinks you lent me fell into the tub. I had to get them before I could unplug the drain.”

“Did you?” his mother asked.

He shook his head. “No.” His voice cracked.

Jay’s eyebrows knit together. She walked over to him and put her hands on his wrist. He felt her finger unhook the back of the cufflink. She held the emerald and diamond stud in her flat palm. Louis reached over to his other wrist; that one was in too. He removed the cufflink and placed it in her hand as tears welled in his eyes.

He’d imagined the whole thing.

❂

 **“L** ouis Tomlinson?” The reception called out. He shot up. The magazine he’d been not-reading fell to the floor, open to an NC-17 photograph of two naked models straddling a handsomely suited actor. Rather racy for a psychiatrist’s office. He picked up the magazine and set it on the coffee table, then walked over to the door the smiling receptionist was pointing at. He went in.

The psychiatrist took off his glasses and set them on his desk as she rose. “Louis, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Simon Cowell.”

They shook hands. Louis stared at the seating options. An armchair. The obligatory couch. A desk chair. Probably some kind of test. Louis chose the armchair.

Dr. Cowell smiled and crossed his legs. He was thin. His parent’s age. Maybe they even knew each other. “So, what brings you here today, Louis?” he asked.

Louis held out his bandaged arm. Dr. Cowell raised his eyebrows, waiting for Louis to speak. So he did.

“I burned myself.”

“Do you mean, you were burned, or you burned yourself?”

He was quick, this one. “I was burned, but my mother thinks I burned myself.”

“How did it happen?”

Louis took a deep breath and told him about the cufflinks and the bathtub. But not the unlocked front door. Or the box in his closet that he didn’t remember taking down. One thing at a time.

“Has anything like that happened before?”

“Like what?” Louis scanned the books on his shelves; the diagnostic manual, pharmacological volumes, journals. Nothing interesting or unusual. It could have been anyone’s office. There was no personality.

Dr. Cowell paused before answering. “Was last night the first time you’ve been in the hospital?”

Louis narrowed his eyes at him. He sounded more like a lawyer than a psychiatrist. “Why ask if you already know the answer?”

“I don’t already know the answer,” Dr. Cowell said, unruffled.

“My mother didn’t tell you?”

“She told me that you moved here recently because you experience a trauma back in Rhode Island, but I didn’t get a chance to speak with her for very long. I had to switch one of my other patients to see you on such short notice.”

“I’m sorry,” Louis said.

Dr. Cowell furrowed his eyebrows. “There’s nothing to be sorry for, Louis. I just hope I can help.”

Louis hoped so too, but he was starting to doubt it. “What do you have in mind?”

“Well, you can start by telling me if you’ve ever been in the hospital before,” he said, clasping his hands in his lap. Louis nodded.

“What for?” He looked at Louis with only casual interest. He wrote down nothing.

“My friends died in an accident. My best friend. I was there, but I wasn’t hurt.”

He looked confused. “Why were you in the hospital, then?”

“I was unconscious for three days.” Louis’ mouth didn’t seem to want to form the word “coma.”

“Your friends,” Dr. Cowell said slowly. “How did they die?”

Louis tried to answer her, to repeat what his mother had told him, but had trouble with the words. They were buried in his throat, just beyond his reach. The silence grew more and more awkward as he struggled to pull them out.

Dr. Cowell leaned in. “It’s okay, Louis,” he said. “You don’t have to tell me.”

Louis took a deep breath. “I don’t remember how they died, honestly.”

He nodded his head. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Louis shot him a skeptical look. “Just like that?”

Dr. Cowell smiled softly, his brown eyes kind. “Just like that. We don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to talk about in this room.”

Louis bristled a bit. “I don’t mind talking about it. I just don’t remember.”

“And that’s okay. Sometimes, the mind has a way of protecting us from things until we’re ready to deal with them.”

His assumption bothered Louis, more than it should have. “I feel ready to deal with it.”

He ran a hand through his short dark hair. “That’s fine too. When did all of this happen?”

Louis thought for a minute—it was so hard to keep track of time. “A few months ago? December?”

For the first time, Dr. Cowell’s demeanor changed. He seemed surprised. “That’s pretty recent.”

Louis shrugged and looked away. His eyes fell on a plastic-looking plant in the corner of the room that had caught the sunlight. Louis wondered if it was real.

“So how have you been doing since the move?”

A slight smile twitched at the corner of Louis’ mouth. “Aside from the burn, you mean?”

Dr. Cowell grinned back. “Aside from that.”

The conversation could play out a hundred different ways. Dr. Cowell was being paid to listen to me—it was his job. Just a job. When he went home to his family, he wouldn’t be Dr. Cowell. He’d be Dad. Simon, maybe. Someone else, just like Louis’ mother. And he wouldn’t think about Louis until he saw him next.

But Louis was there for a reason. The flashbacks—the dreams—Louis could handle. The hallucinations, he could deal with. But the burn upped the ante. He thought of the twins, looking so scared and small and lost in the hospital. He never wanted to see him look that way again.

Louis swallowed hard and went for it. “I think something’s happening to me.” His grand declaration.

Dr. Cowell’s expression didn’t change. “What do you think is happening to you?”

“I don’t know.” Louis felt the urge to sigh and rake his hands through his hair, but resisted. He didn’t know what kind of signal it would send, and didn’t want to send the wrong one.

“All right, let’s back up for a minute. _Why_ do you think something is happening to you? What makes you think that?”

Louis struggled to maintain eye contact with him. “Sometimes I see things that aren’t there.”

“What kinds of things?”

Where to begin? Louis decided to go in reverse chronological order. “Well, like I told you, I thought the cufflinks my mother lent me fell in the bathtub, but they were on my sleeves.”

Dr. Cowell nodded. “Go on.”

“And before I went to the party last night, I saw one of my dead friends in the mirror.” _Zing._

“What kind of party was it?”

If Dr. Cowell was shocked by Louis’ revelation, he didn’t show it.

“A—a costume party?” He didn’t mean for it to sound like a question.

“Did you go with anyone?”

Louis nodded. “My sister, but she was meeting someone else.” The room started to feel warm.

“So you were alone?”

An image of Harry whispering to the fairy girl flashed before his eyes. Alone, indeed. “Yes.”

“Have you gone out much since you moved?”

Louis shook his head. “Last night was the first time.”

Dr. Cowell smiled slightly. “Sounds like it could be stressful.”

At that, Louis snorted. Couldn’t help it. “Compared to what?”

His eyebrows lifted. “You tell me.”

“Compared to have your best friend die? Or moving away from everyone you’ve ever known? Or starting at a new school so late in the year?”

Or finding out your father is representing an alleged murderer of a teenage girl? The thought appeared in his mind without warning. Without precedent. He pushed it away. Dad’s work was _not_ going to be a problem for him. He couldn’t let himself be _that_ damaged—if his mother noticed him stressing about it, she might make him drop the case, his first one since they moved. And with five kids in private school now, they probably needed the money. Louis had screwed up their lives enough already. He decided not to mention it to Dr. Cowell. What they said was confidential, but still.

His face was serious when he spoke. “You’re right,” he said, shifting back in his chair. “Let me ask you this: Was last night the first time you saw something, or someone, that wasn’t there?”

Louis shook his head, somewhat relieved that the focus of the conversation had shifted.

“Do you feel comfortable telling me about the other things you’ve seen?”

Not particularly. Louis picked idly at the thread in his worn jeans, knowing how crazy he would sound. How crazy he already sounded. He said it anyway.

“I saw my old boyfriend, Liam, at school, once.”

“When?”

“My first day.” After he saw his Trig classroom collapse. After Nick first appeared in the mirror. He bit his lip.

“So, you were already pretty stressed out.”

Louis nodded.

“Do you miss him?”

His question caught Louis off guard. How did he answer that? When he was awake, he barely thought about Liam. And when he dreamed—it wasn’t exactly pleasant. He lowered his eyes, hoping Dr. Cowell wouldn’t notice his burning face, the only evidence of his shame. He was a bad person.

“Sometimes these things are complicated, Louis,” he said. Guess he noticed after all. “When we lose people who were important to us, there’s a whole range of emotions we might experience.”

Louis shifted in his seat. “Can we talk about something else?”

“We can, but I’d really like to stay with this for a little while. Can you tell me a little bit about your relationship?”

Louis closed his eyes. “It wasn’t much of one. We were only together for a couple of months.”

“Was it a good couple of months?”

He thought about it.

“Okay,” Dr. Cowell said, moving on. The answer must have been written all over his face. “How about your relationship with your best friends? You saw him since he died too, right?”

Louis shook his head. “That was Nick. He only moved to Laurelton last year. He was Liam—my boyfriend’s—brother. He was close with Niall.”

Dr. Cowell’s eyes narrowed. “Niall. Your best friend?”

Louis nodded.

“But he wasn’t close with you?”

“Not so much.”

“And you haven’t seen Niall.”

Louis shook his head.

“Is there anything else? Anything you’ve seen that you shouldn’t have? Anything you’ve heard that you shouldn’t have?”

Louis’ eyes narrowed. “Like voices?” He definitely thought Louis was crazy.

Dr. Cowell shrugged. “Like anything.”

Louis looked at his lap and tried to stifle a yawn. He failed. “Sometimes. Sometimes I hear my name being called.”

Dr. Cowell nodded. “How do you sleep?”

“Not so great,” he admitted.

“Nightmares?”

 _You could call them that._ “Yes.”

“Do you remember any of them?”

Louis rubbed the back of his neck. “Sometimes. Sometimes I dream about that night.”

“I think you’re pretty brave to be telling me all of this.” He didn’t sound patronizing when he said it.

“I don’t want to be crazy,” Louis told him. Truthfully.

“I don’t think you’re crazy.”

“So it’s normal to see things that aren’t there?”

“When someone’s been through a traumatic event, yes.”

“Even though I don’t remember it?”

Dr. Cowell raised an eyebrow. “Any of it?”

Louis rubbed his forehead, then pushed the hair off the back of his neck. He said nothing.

“I think you are starting to remember it,” he said. “Slowly, and in a way that it doesn’t hurt your mind too much to process. And even though I want to explore this more if you decide to see me again, I think it’s possible that you seeing Liam and Nick could be your mind’s way of expressing the unresolved feelings you have about them.”

“So what do I do? To make it stop?” Louis asked him.

“Well, if you think you’d like to see me again, we can talk about making a plan for therapy.”

“No drugs?” Louis figured his mother had taken him to a psychiatrist for a reason. Probably figured she needed to bring out the big guns. And after last night, he couldn’t exactly argue with her.

“Well, I do usually prescribe medication to be used in conjunction with therapy. But it’s your choice. I can recommend you to a psychologist if you don’t want to pursue medication just yet, or we can give it a try. See how you do.”

The things that had been happening since they moved—the dreams, the hallucinations—he wondered if a pill could really make it go away. “Do you think it will help?”

“On its own? Maybe. But with cognitive behavioral therapy, chances are higher that you’d feel better sooner, although it’s definitely a long-term process.”

“Cognitive behavioral therapy?”

Dr. Cowell nodded. “It changes your way of thinking about things. How to deal with what you’ve been seeing. What you’re feeling. It will also help with the nightmares you’ve been having.”

“The memories,” Louis corrected him. And then a thought materialized. “What if—what if I just need to remember?”

He leaved forward in his chair slightly. “That could be a part of it, Louis. But it’s not something you can force. Your mind is already working on it, in its own way.”

A smile tugged at the corner of Louis’ mouth. “So, we won’t be doing any hypnotherapy or anything here?”

Dr. Cowell grinned. “I’m afraid not,” he said.

Louis nodded. “My mother doesn’t believe in it either.”

Dr. Cowell took a pad off of his desk and wrote something on it. He tore a piece of paper off and handed it to Louis. “Have your mother fill this. If you want to take it, great. If not, that’s okay too. It might not kick in for a few weeks, though. Or it might kick in a few days after you start. Everyone’s different.”

Louis couldn’t read Dr. Cowell’s handwriting. “Zoloft?”

He shook his head. “I don’t like to prescribe SSRIs for teenagers.”

“How come?”

Dr. Cowell’s eyes scanned the calendar on his desk. “There have been some studies that show a link between SSRIs and suicide in adolescents. Can you meet next Thursday?”

The dates flew by in Louis’ mind. “Actually, I have exams coming up. Huge chunk of my grade.”

“That’s a lot of pressure.”

He barked out a laugh. “Yeah. I guess so.”

Dr. Cowell picked up his glasses and put them back on. “Louis, have you ever thought about taking some time off from school?”

Louis stood up. “So I can sit around and think about how much I miss Niall all day? Screw up my chance to graduate on time? Ruin my transcripts?”

“Point taken.” Dr. Cowell smiled and stood. He extended his hand, and Louis shook it but couldn’t meet his eyes. He was too embarrassed by his impromptu pity party.

“Try to watch the stress, though,” he said, then shrugged. “As much as you can. PTSD episodes tend to be triggered by moments of it. And call me when exams are over, especially if you decide to start taking the medication. Or before, if you need me.” He handed Louis his card. “It was nice to meet you, Louis. I’m glad you came in.”

“Thanks,” he said, and meant it.

His mother was waiting for him outside when the appointment ended. Surprisingly, she didn’t pry. He handed her the prescription and her face tensed.

“What’s wrong?” He asked her.

“Nothing,” she said, and faced the road. They stopped at a pharmacy on the way home. She placed the bag in the center console.

Louis opened it and looked at the pill bottle. “Zyprexa,” he read out loud. “What is it?”

“It should help make things a little easier to deal with,” Jay said, still staring ahead. A non-answer. She said nothing else on the way home.

His mother took the bag in the house with her, and Louis went to his room. He turned on his computer and typed “Zyprexa” into Google. He clicked on the first website he found, and his mouth went dry.

It was an antipsychotic.

❂

 **H** e didn’t know how to react to Harry in class the next day. The costume party seemed like a lifetime ago, but his humiliation was fresh. He was grateful for the long-sleeves dress shirt he had to wear—it minimized the impact of the bandage on his left arm, at least. His mother had become the Keeper of the Pills, and she doled out the Tylenol with codeine before he left that morning. He ached all over but he didn’t take it, and didn’t plan on starting the Zyprexa just yet, either. He needed a clear head.

When Louis walked into English, Harry was already there. Their eyes met for a second before Louis dropped his gaze and walked past him. He had to find out about Mabel—was it only a week since he’d taken her?—and figure out how to spring her on his parents now, considering what had happened. But he didn’t know how to bring it up to Harry, how to talk to him after the party. Louis sat down at a desk on the other side of the room, but Harry stood and followed him, sitting behind his chair. As Ms. Leib began her lecture, Louis found himself tapping his pencil on his desk. Harry cracked his knuckles behind him, setting his teeth on edge.

When the bell rang, Louis threaded through the students, eager for Trig for the first time in his life. Harry drove people crazy, and Louis was already crazy. He needed to let it go. Let him go. As Zayn had so astutely said, Louis had enough problems.

Louis was so relieved to see Zayn in Trigonometry that he might have actually smiled. With teeth. But the glimmer of his good mood didn’t last; Harry caught up with him as soon as the bell rang.

“Hey,” he said, as he fell into a graceful lope beside Louis.

“Hey.” Louis gave him the stare-ahead. _Ask about the dog. Ask about the dog._ He tried to find the words but clenched his teeth instead.

“Mabel isn’t doing so well,” Harry said, his voice even.

Louis’ stomach dropped and he slowed his pace by a fraction. “Is she going to be okay?”

“Think so, but it’s probably better if she stays with us for a while. So my mother can care for her,” he said, as he ran his hand over the back of his neck. “Do you mind?”

“No,” Louis said, shifting the weight of his bag on his shoulder as he approached his next class. “That’s probably the best thing.”

“I wanted to ask—” Harry started, then lifted a hand to his hair, twisting the strands. “My mother wanted to know if maybe we could keep her? She’s gotten attached.”

Louis tilted his head sideways to see him. Harry either didn’t notice his bandaged hand or was ignoring it. He seemed indifferent to everything. Remote. His words didn’t match his tone.

“I mean, she’s your dog,” Harry said, “whatever you want we’ll do—”

“It’s okay,” Louis cut him off. He remembered the way Mabel had curled into Harry’s chest as he carried her. She’d be better off with him. Definitely. “Tell your mom I said it’s fine.”

“I was going to ask you when I saw you at the party, but you left.”

“I had somewhere else to be,” Louis said, avoiding his eyes.

“Right. What’s wrong?” he asked, still sounding utterly disinterested.

“Nothing,” Louis said.

“I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t care.” _Not true._

“All right. Have lunch with me, then,” he said casually.

Louis paused, torn between yes and no. “No,” he said finally.

“Why not?”

“I have a study date,” he said. Hopefully Zayn would oblige.

“With who?”

“Why do you care?” Louis asked with an edge. They could have been discussing molecular physics for all the interest he seemed to be paying to the conversation.

“I’m starting to wonder that myself,” Harry said, and walked away. He didn’t look back.

Fine.

Louis drew his bandaged had in Art, even though they were supposed to be working on faces. And when lunch arrived, he didn’t look for Zayn, choosing solitude instead. He withdrew the banana he brought, peeled it, and took a slow bite as he wandered to his locker, letting his teeth graze against the flesh. He was glad to be free of Harry. Relieved, even, as he went to exchange his books.

Until he saw the note.

Folded so that it fit through the slats of his locker, innocently perched on a tower of his books. A thick piece of paper with his name on it.

Acid free, bright white paper.

Sketchbook paper.

Louis unfolded the note and recognized one of his drawings of Harry immediately. The other side simply said:

**I HAVE SOMETHING THAT BELONGS TO YOU.**

**MEET AT THE VENDING MACHINES AT LUNCH IF YOU WANT IT BACK.**

A rush of heat ignited his skin. Did Harry steal his sketchbook? His sudden fury surprised him. He’d never punched anyone before, but there was a first time for everything. He punctuated the though with a ringing, metallic slam of his locker door.

Louis doesn’t remember how he got to the bottom of the stairs. One minute he was by his locker, and the next minute he was rounding the corner by the vending machines. And then a horrible thought occurred to him; what if it wasn’t Harry? What if it was someone else? Like—oh, no. Like Kendall. Louis imagined her dissolving into a fit of giggles as she showed his sketches of Harry to her friends.

Sure enough, when he arrived, Kendall stood waiting with a smug, satisfied sneer on her generically pretty face. Flanked by Justin, they blocked Louis’ way, dripping with gloat.

When he saw them there, he was still confident he could handle it. He’d almost come to expect her bullshit.

What he didn’t expect were the dozens of students assembled to watch this train wreck unfold.

And what send a piercing scream though his spine was the sight of Harry, centered in a halo of admirers, male and female.

At that moment, the magnitude of Kendall’s machinations insulted his mind. His stomach turned as it all snapped into place; why everyone was there, why Harry was there. Kendall had been constructing this three-ring circus since Harry first spoke to Louis on day one. It was _her_ black Mercedes he almost hit last week—she saw him get out of Harry’s car. And now, all she needed to complete her ringmaster role was a top hat and a monocle.

_Oh, Kendall. I underestimated you._

All eyes were on Louis. His move. If he played.

His eyes scanned the assembled students as he stood there, debating. Finally, he simply looked at Kendall and dared her to speak. Who speaks first loses. She didn’t disappoint.

“Looking for this?” she chirped innocently, as she held up his sketchbook.

Louis reached for it but she snatched it away. “You crotch-pheasant,” he said through gritted teeth.

Kendall feigned shock. “My, my, Louis. What language! I’m simply returning a lost item to its rightful owner. You are the rightful owner, aren’t you?” she asked, as she flipped the sketchbook open to the inside cover. “‘Louis Tomlinson,’” she read loudly. “That’s you,” she added with emphasis, punctuating the declaration with a sneer. Louis said nothing. “Justin here was nice enough to pick it up when you left it in Trig by mistake.”

Justin smiled on cue. He must have snatched it from Louis’ bag.

“Actually, he stole it.”

“I’m afraid not, Louis. You must have carelessly misplaced it,” she said, and asked.

Now that she had set the stage, Kendall began to flip through Louis’ sketchbook. If he hit her, Justin would snatch the sketchbook and Harry would still see what he’d drawn. And let’s be honest, Louis has never hit anyone in his life. There would be nothing he could say to minimize the damage, either. The sketches were so accurate, snapshots of him so adoringly rendered that they’d betray Louis’ obsessive infatuation the second they were revealed. The humiliation would be perfect, and she knew it.

Defeat bloomed in Louis’ cheeks, staining his throat and his collarbone. He could do nothing but suffer through the emotional skinning and stand there, flayed before the entire school until Kendall was drunk on her overdose of cruelty.

And collect his sketchbook when she was finished. Because it was his, and he would get it back.

Louis didn’t want to see Harry’s face when Kendall finally turned to the page where he made his first appearance. Seeing him smirk or smile or laugh or roll his eyes would undo Louis and he could not cry here today. So he fixed his stare on Kendall’s face, and watched her tremble with gleeful malice as she held the sketch book and made her way over to him. The crowd shifted from a rough semicircle into a wedge, with Harry at the point.

“Harry?” she cooed.

“Kendall,” he replied flatly.

She flipped from page to page and Louis could hear the whispers rise into a murmur and could hear a ringing laugh somewhere from the far side of the tiki hut, but it died down. Kendall turned the pages slowly for effect, and like some demonic schoolmarm, held the book at an angle to provide maximum exposure to the assembled crowd. Everyone needed to have the opportunity to catch a long, languorous glimpse of his disgrace.

“This looks _so_ much like you,” she said to Harry, pressing her body against his.

“My boy is talented,” Harry said,

Louis’ heart stopped beating.

Kendall’s heart stopped beating.

Everyone’s heart stopped beating. The buzzing of a solitary gnat would have sounded obscene in the stillness.

“Bullshit,” Kendall whispered finally, but it was loud enough for everyone to hear. She hadn’t moved an inch.

Harry shrugged. “I’m a vain bastard, and Louis indulges me.” After a pause, he added, “I’m just glad you didn’t get your greedy little claws on the _other_ sketchbook. _That_ would have been embarrassing.” His lips curved into a sly smile as he slid from the picnic table he’d been sitting on. “Now, get the fuck off me,” he said calmly to a dumbfounded, speechless Kendall as he pushed past her, plucking the sketchbook roughly from her hands.

And walked over to Louis.

“Let’s go,” Harry ordered gently, once he was at his side. His body brushed the line of Louis’ shoulder and arm protectively. And then he held out his hand.

Louis wanted tot are it and he wanted to spit in Kendall’s face and he wanted to kiss him and he wanted to knee Justin Bieber in the groin. Civilization won out, and Louis willed each individual nerve to respond to the signal he sent with his brain and placed his fingers in Harry’s. A current traveled from his fingertips through to the hollow where his stomach used to be.

And just like that, he was completely, utterly, and entirely,

His.

Neither of them spoke until they were out of earshot and out of sight of the shocked and awed student body. They were standing next to a bench by the basketball court when Harry stopped, finally letting go of Louis’ hand. It felt empty, but he barely had time to process the loss.

“Are you all right?” he asked softly.

Louis nodded, staring past him. His tongue felt numb.

“Are you sure?”

Louis nodded again.

“Are you positive?”

Louis glared at him. “I’m fine,” he said.

“That’s my boy.”

“I am not your boy,” Louis said, with more venom than he intended.

“Right, then,” Harry said, and looked at him with a curious stare. He raised an eyebrow. “About that.”

Louis didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.

“You like me,” he finally said. “You _like_ me, like me.” He was trying not to smile.

“No. I hate you,” Louis said, hoping that saying it would make it so.

“And yet, you draw me.” Harry was still smug, completely unfettered by Louis’ declaration.

This was torture; worse somehow than what just happened, even though it was only the two of them. Or _because_ it was only the two of them.

“Why?” Harry asked.

“Why what?” What could he say? Harry, despite you being an asshole, or maybe because of it, I’d like to rip off your clothes and have your babies. Don’t tell.

“Why everything,” he continued. “Start with why you hate me. And then continue until you get to the part about the drawings.”

“I don’t really hate you,” Louis said in defeat.

“I know.”

“Then why are you asking?”

“Because I wanted you to admit it,” Harry said, grinning crookedly.

“Done,” Louis said, feeling hopeless. “Are we finished?”

“You’re the most ungrateful person alive,” he mused.

“You’re right,” Louis said, his voice flat. “Thanks for the save. I should go.” He started to walk away.

“Not so fast.” Harry reached for his good wrist. He took it gently and Louis turned around. His heart was sickeningly aflutter. “We still have a problem.”

Louis looked at him, uncomprehending. Harry was still holding his wrist and the contact interpreted with his cerebral functioning.

“Everyone thinks we’re together,” Harry said.

Oh. Harry needed a way out. Of course he did; they weren’t, in fact, together. Louis was just—he doesn’t know what he was to him. Louis looked at the ground, digging the toe of his sneaker into the paved walkway like a sullen child while he thought about what to say.

“Tell your friends you dumped me on Monday,” Louis said finally.

Harry let go of his wrist, and looked genuinely confused. “What?”

“If you tell them that you broke up with me over the weekend, everyone will forget about this eventually. Tell them I was too needy or something,” Louis said.

Harry arched his eyebrows slightly. “That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

“Fine,” Louis said, confused himself. “I’ll go along with whatever you want, okay?”

“Sunday.”

“Excuse me?”

“I want Sunday. My parents are having a thing on Saturday, but Sunday I’m free.”

Louis didn’t understand. “And?”

“And you’re going to spend the day with me.”

That was not what Louis expected. “I am?”

“Yes. You owe me,” he said. And he was right; Louis did. Harry wouldn’t have had to do anything to make Kendall’s dream and Louis’ nightmare come true. He could have sat there and shrugged and stared, and it would have been enough to perfect Louis’ school-wide humiliation.

But Harry didn’t. He saved Louis, and he could not fathom why.

“Is there any point asking what you’re going to make me do on Sunday?”

“Not really.”

Okay. “Is there any point asking what you’re going to do to me?”

Harry grinned wickedly. “Not really.”

Fabulous. “Does it involve the use of a safe word?”

“That will depend entirely on you.” Harry moved impossibly closer, just inches away. A few freckles disappeared into the scruff on his jaw. “I’ll be gentle,” Harry added. Louis’ breath caught in his throat at he looked him from beneath those lashes, ruining him.

Louis narrowed his eyes at him. “You’re evil.”

In response, Harry smiled, and raised his finger to gently tap the tip of Louis’ nose.

“And you’re mine,” he said, then walked away.

❂

 **A** fter school, Louis found Lottie waiting for him at the back gate. She shifted her overloaded backpack to her other shoulder.

“Well, well. If it isn’t the talk of the town.”

“News travels fast ‘round these parts?” Louis asked, but as he did, he noticed quite a bit of staring from other Croyden students as they made their way to the car.

“On the contrary, dear brother. I didn’t hear about the showdown at Tiki Corral until a half an hour after it ended,” she said as they reached the car. “Are we going to talk about it?”

Louis barked out a laugh as he pulled his car door open and ducked inside. “No.”

Lottie followed in less than a second. “Harry Styles, huh?”

“I said no.”

“When did that happen?”

“No means no.”

“You don’t actually think you’re going to be allowed out of the house with this guy without my help, do you?”

“Still no.”

Lottie pulled out of the parking lot. “Something tells me you’ll come around,” she said, and smiled at the road in front of them the whole way home. So annoying. When she pulled into the driveway, Louis shot out of the passenger seat, almost missing the fact that their younger brother was crouched over the bushes that separated their house from the neighboring property. Lottie was already inside.

Louis made his way over to Ernest. As of yesterday, he’d seemed fine. Like the hospital never happened. Louis wanted to make sure it stayed that way.

“Hey,” Louis said as he walked up to him. “Whats—”

A black cat he’d been petting slit its yellow eyes and hissed at Louis. He took step back.

Ernest withdrew his hand and turned, still crouched. “You’re scaring her.”

Louis raised his hands defensively. “Sorry. You coming inside?”

The cat issued a low meow and then darted away. Ernest stood and wiped his hands on his shirt.

“I am now.”

Once in the house, Louis dropped his bag by the front table, ignoring the crunch of some unidentifiable object inside the canvas, and strolled into the kitchen. The phone rang. Ernest darted to pick it up.

“Tomlinson residence,” he answered formally.

“Hold please,” he said as he covered the mouthpiece. He really was hilarious. “It’s for you, Louis,” he said. “And it’s a booooy,” he sing-singed.

Louis rolled his eyes but wondered who it could be. “I’m taking it in my room,” Louis said as Ernest erupted in giggles. Horrible.

Out of his field of vision, Louis jogged the rest of the way and lifted his phone. “Hello?”

“Hello,” Harry answered, mimicking Louis’ American accent. But he’d know that voice anywhere.

“How did you get my phone number?” Louis blurted, before he could stop himself.

“It’s called research.” Louis could hear him smirking over the phone.

“Or stalking.”

Harry chuckled. “You’re adorable when you’re bitchy.”

“You’re not,” Louis said, but smiled despite himself.

“What time shall I pick you up on Sunday? And where exactly do you live?”

Harry meeting Louis’ family could not happen. He would never hear the end of it. “You don’t have to pick me up,” Louis said in a rush.

“Considering you have no idea where we’re going and I have no intention of telling you, I’m quite sure that I do.”

“I can meet you somewhere centrally located.”

Harry sounded amused. “I promise to press my trousers before meeting your family. I’ll even bring flowers for the occasion.”

“Oh, God. Please don’t,” Louis said. Maybe honesty would be the best policy. “My family is going o screw with my life if you come over.” I knew them far too well.

“Congratulations—you just made the prospect all the more enticing. What’s your address?”

“I hate you more than you can know.”

“Give it up, Louis. You know I’ll find it anyway.”

Louis sighed, defeated, and gave it to him.

“I’ll be there at ten.”

“Oh,” Louis said, surprised. “For some reason I thought this was a day thing.”

“Hilarious. Ten in the morning, darling.”

“Can’t a guy sleep in on the weekend?”

“You don’t sleep. See you Sunday, and don’t wear stupid shoes.” Harry said, and hung up before louis could reply.

Louis stood, staring at the phone. He was so _aggravating_. But a nervous thrill traveled through his stomach. Him and Harry. Sunday. Just them.

Jay poked her head into his room and spoke, startling him. “Dad’s going to be home for dinner tonight. Can you help set the table? Or does your arm hurt too much?”

His arm. His mother. Would she still let him go?

“Be right there,” he said, putting down the phone. Seems he’d need Lottie’s help after all.

Louis walked down the hallway and slipped into her room. She was on her bed, reading a book.

“Hi,” Louis said.

“Hi.” She didn’t look up.

“So, I need your help.”

“With what, pray tell?”

She was going to make this as difficult as possible. Awesome. “I’m supposed to go out with Harry on Sunday.”

She laughed.

“Glad I amuse you.”

“I’m sorry, I’m just—I’m impressed.”

“God, Lottie, am I really that hideous?”

“Oh, come on. That’s not what I meant. I’m impressed that you actually agreed to go out. That’s all.”

Louis sulked, and raised his arm. “I don’t think Mom is ever going to let me out of her sight again.”

At this, Lottie finally looked at him and raised an eyebrow. “She was supremely pissed Wednesday night, but now that you’re, you know, talking to someone, I could work some magic, I think.” Her grin spread. “If you spilled the proverbial beans, that is.”

If anyone could work their mother, it was Lottie. “Fine. What?”

“Did you know it was coming?”

“My sketchbook went missing on Wednesday.”

“Nice try. How about the part where Styles declared to practically the entire school that you’d been using him to practice your nudes?”

Louis sighed. “Complete surprise.”

“That’s what I thought when I heard it. I mean, really. You’ve barely left the house…” She trailed off, but Louis heard the things she didn’t say—you’re barely left the house except to run away from a party, to visit the emergency room, to visit a psychiatrist.

Louis interrupted the awkward silence. “So are you going to help me or not?”

Lottie tilted her head sideways and smiled. “You like him?”

This was unbearable. “You know what, forget it.” He turned to leave.

Lottie sat up. “All right, all right. I’ll help you. But only out of guilt.” She made her way over to him. “I should have told you about Dad’s case.”

“Well, consider us even, then,” Louis said, then smiled. “If you help me set the table.”

“So what’s the special occasion?” Louis asked his father at dinner that night. He gave Louis a questioning look. “It’s, like, the third time you’ve been home this early since we moved.”

“Ah,” he said, and smiled. “Well, it was a good day at the office.” He took a bite of curried chicken, then swallowed. “Turns out my client’s the real deal. The so-called eyewitness is a hundred years old. She is not going to hold up on cross.”

Jay stood to retrieve more food from the kitchen. “That’s lovely, Marcus,” she said, watching Louis. Louis kept his face carefully composed.

“Well, what do you want me to say? Lassiter has an alibi. He has roots int he community. He’s one of the most well-respected land developers in south Florida, he’s given hundreds of thousands of dollars to conservatory groups—”

“Isn’t that, like, oxymoronic?” Ernest chimed in.

Lottie grinned at their little brother, and then piped up. “I think Ernie’s right. Maybe that’s all just a pretense. I mean, he’s a developer and he’s donating to the groups who hate him? It’s obviously just for show—probably bought him good will at his bail hearing.”

Louis decided to join in, to keep up appearances. “I agree. Sounds like he has something to hide.” He sounded suitably jovial. His mother even gave him a thumbs-up from the kitchen. Mission accomplished.

“All right,” their father said. “I know when I’m being ganged up on. But it’s not very funny, guys. The man’s on trial for murder, and the evidence doesn’t add up.”

“But Dad, isn’t it your job to say that?”

“Knock it off, Ernest. You tell him, Dad.” Lottie said to their father. When their dad’s back was turned, Lottie winked at their little brother.

“What I’d like to know,” their mother said as their father opened his mouth to retort, “is where my eldest daughter will be attending college in two years.”

And then Lottie was in the spotlight. She reported on the college acceptances she expected, and Louis tuned her out while shoveling some basmati rice onto his plate. He’d already taken a bite when he noticed something all through the prongs of his fork. Something small. Something pale.

Something moving.

He froze mid-chew as his gaze slid over his plate. White maggots writhed on the porcelain, half-drowned in curry. Louis covered his mouth.

“You okay?” Lottie asked, then ate a forkful of rice.

Louis looked at him wide-eyed with his mouth still full, and then back down at his food. No maggots. Just rice. But he couldn’t bring himself to swallow.

Louis got up from the table and walked slowly to the hallway. Once he turned the corner, he raced to the guest bathroom, and spit out the food. His knees trembled and his body felt clammy. He splashed cold water over his pale, sweaty far and looked in the mirror out of habit.

Liam stood behind him, wearing the same clothes he had on the night Louis last saw him and a smile that was completely devoid of warmth. Louis couldn’t breathe.

“You need to take your mind off this place,” Liam said, before Louis turned to the toilet and threw up.

❂

 **L** ouis’ alarm shocked him away Sunday morning. He hadn’t remembered falling asleep at all. He was still in the clothes he was wearing the day before.

He was just tired. And maybe a little nervous about meeting Harry today. Maybe. A little. He focused on his closet and surveyed his options.

Shorts, no. Dress pants, definitely not. Jeans it would be, then. He pulled on a destroyed pair and snatched his favorite T-shirt from his dresser drawer, yanking it over his head.

His heart beat wildly in sharp contrast to the sluggish movement of every other body part as he made his way to the kitchen that morning, as if everything was morning. Because it was.

His mother was putting slices of bread in the toaster when he walked in.

“Morning, Mom.” His voice was so even. Louis gave himself an internal round of applause.

“Good morning, honey.” She smiled, and pulled out a filter for the coffeepot. “You’re up early.” She tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear.

“Yes.” He was. And she didn’t know why. Since Wednesday, he’d been trying to think of some way to mention today’s nonplus to her, but his mind kept blanking. And now Harry was almost here.

“Got any plans today?”

Go time. “Yeah, actually.” Keep it casual. No big deal.

“What are you up to?” She rummaged through the cabinets and he couldn’t see her face.

“I don’t really know.” It was true; he didn’t, though that is generally not what parents like to hear. Particularly not his parents. Particularly not his mother.

“Well, who are you going with?” she asked. If she wasn’t suspicious yet, she would be soon.

“A boy from school…” Louis said, his voice trailing off as he braced himself for the third degree.

“Do you want to take my car?”

What?

“Louis?”

He blinked. “Sorry…I thought I said ‘what?’ What?”

“I asked if you wanted to take the Acura. I don’t need it today, and you’re off the codeine.”

Lottie must have held up her side of the bargain. Louis would have to ask her how she finagled it later.

Louis declined to correct his mother and tell her he’d been off the codeine for days. The burn still hurt, but since Friday, it had subsided quite a bit. And under the dressings, it didn’t look nearly as bad as he’d expected. The ER doctor told him he would probably scar, but his blisters already seemed to be healing. So far, so good.

“Thanks Mom, but he’s actually picking me up. He’ll be here in—” he checked the clock. Damn. “Five minutes.”

His mother turned to look at him, surprised. “I wish you’d given me a bit more notice,” she said, as she checked her reflection in the microwave’s glass surface.

“You look great, Mom. He’ll probably just honk or something anyway.” Louis was tempted to sneak a quick glance at himself in the microwave too, but wasn’t willing to chance who might be staring back. He poured himself a glass of orange juice and sat down at the kitchen table instead. “Is Dad here?”

“Nope, he left for the office. Why?”

Because that would leave one less person around to witness his coming humiliation. But before he could translate his thought into acceptable speech, Lottie sauntered in. She stretched, trying to glance her fingertips against the top of the door frame. She failed.

“Mom,” she said, kissing Mom on the cheek, as she made her way to the refrigerator. “Any plans today, Louis?” she asked, her head buried in the contents of the fridge.

“Shut up,” Louis said, but his heart wasn’t in it.

“Don’t tease him, Lottie,” their mother said.

Three knocks at the front door announced Harry’s arrival.

Lottie and Louis looked at each other for half a second. Then Louis shot up from the kitchen table and she slammed the refrigerator door. They both bolted for the foyer. Lottie got there first. Bitch. Their mother was right behind Louis, rubbernecking.

Lottie opened the front door wide. Harry was a standing ovation in dark jeans and a white T-shirt, exuding his scruffy charm.

And he was carrying flowers. Louis’ face didn’t know whether to blanch or blush.

“Morning,” Harry said, flashing a brilliant smile at the three of them. “I’m Harry Styles,” he said, looking over Louis’ shoulder. He extended the bouquet of flowers to their mother, who reached past Louis to take it. It was stunning. Harry had good taste. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Tomlinson.”

“Come on it, Harry,” she gushed. “And you can call me Jay.”

Louis as dying. Lottie’s shoulders shook with silent laughter.

Harry stepped inside and grinned at Louis’ sister. “You must be Lottie?”

“Indeed. Pleased to meet your acquaintance,” his sister said.

It was a slow, painful death.

“Please sit, Harry.” Their mother gestured at the sofas in the living room. “I’m going to put these in some water.”

Louis saw a window of opportunity and latched on to it. “Actually, I think we have to—”

“I’d love to, thanks,” Harry said quickly. He was trying to hide a smile and failing, while Lottie looked like a canary eating feline. They both walked into the living room. Lottie sat in an overstuffed armchair as Harry settled himself into one of the sofas. Louis stood.

“So, what are you doing with my big brother today?” Lottie asked. Louis closed his eyes in defeat.

“I’m afraid I can’t ruin the surprise,” Harry said. “But I promise I’ll return him intact.”

He did not just say that. Lottie cackled, and the two of them somehow segued into conversation. About music, Louis thinks, but he wasn’t sure. He was too busy drowning in his embarrassment to pay much attention until his mother returned from the kitchen and breezed past him to sit directly across from Harry.

“So, Harry, where in London are you from?” she asked.

This morning was full of surprised. How did she know where in England he was from? Louis looked at his mother and stared.

“Soho,” Harry replied. “Have you been there?”

Louis’ mother nodded, as Ernest and Doris wandered into the living room in their pajamas. “My mother lived in London before she moved to the U.S.,” she said. “We used to go every year when I was little.” She pulled the twins onto the sofa next to her. “These are my babies, by the way,” she said, grinning.

Harry smiled at Louis’ younger siblings. “Harry,” he said, introducing himself.

“Ernest,” Louis’ brother replied, and held out his hand. Doris silently shied away. “This is Doris.”

Jay and Harry proceeded to chat like old mates about Mother England while Louis shifted from foot to foot, waiting for them to wrap it up.

His mother stood first. “It was so nice to meet, you, Harry. Really. You’ll have to come over for dinner sometime,” she said, before Louis could stop her.

“I’d love to, if Louis will have me.”

Five pairs of eyebrows arched in expectation, waiting for his answer.

“Sure. Sometime,” Louis said, and pushed open the door.

Harry grinned unevenly. “Can’t wait,” he said. “It was an absolute pleasure, Jay. Lottie, we _must_ talk. And Ernest, Doris, it was wonderful to meet you.”

“Wait!” Ernest shot up from the coach and ran to his room. He returned with his cell phone. “What’s your number?” he asked Harry.

Harry looked surprised, but he gave it to him anyway.

“What are you doing, Ernest?” Louis asked.

“Networking,” his brother said, still concentrating on his phone. Then he looked up, and a smile brightened his face. “Okay, got it.”

Jay smiled at Harry as he followed Louis out of the house. “Have a good time!” she called after them.

“Bye, Mom, we’ll be back…later.”

“Wait, Louis,” his mother said as she took a few steps out the door. Harry’s eyes lifted to us, but when Louis’ mother pulled him aside, Harry kept walking to his car, leaving them alone.

Mom held out her hand. A little white pill was inside it.

“ _Mom_ ,” Louis whispered through gritted teeth.

“I’d feel better if you took it.”

“Dr. Cowell said I didn’t have to,” Louis said, glancing over at Harry. He stood next to his car and looked away.

“I know honey, but—”

“Fine, fine,” Louis whispered, and took it from her. Harry was waiting, and he did _not_ want him to see. This was blackmail of the worst kind.

“Take it now, please?”

Louis tossed the pill in his mouth and held it under his tongue as he pretended to swallow. He opened his mouth.

“Thank you,” she said, a sad smile on her face. Louis didn’t respond, and walked away. When he heard the front door close, he extracted the pill from his mouth and threw it on the ground. He hadn’t decided _not_ to take the drugs, but he didn’t want to be forced.

“Pre-date pep talk?” Harry asked as he sauntered over to open the passenger door for Louis. Louis wondered if he’d seen the pill exchange. If he did, he didn’t act like it.

“This isn’t a date,” Louis said. “But that was quite a performance in there. She didn’t even ask what time I’d be coming home.”

Harry grinned. “Glad you enjoyed it.” He glanced down at Louis’ clothes and nodded once. “You’ll do.”

“You’re so fucking patronizing.”

“You have such a filthy mouth.”

“Does it bother you?” Louis smiled, pleased by the thought.

Harry grinned and shut the door behind Louis. “Not in the least.”

❂

 **L** ouis waited for Harry to light a cigarette once he started to drive. Instead, he handed Louis a plastic cup filled with iced coffee.

“Thanks,” Louis said a little surprised. It looked like it had just the right amount of milk. Louis took a sip. And sugar. “So how long of a drive is it? To get wherever?”

Harry lifted his own cup and extracted the straw from it with his mouth. The muscles in his jaw worked as he chewed. Louis couldn’t tear his eyes away. “We’re stopping to see a friend, first,” he said.

A friend. It didn’t sound ominous, and truly, Louis tried not to be paranoid. But a part of him wondered if he was being set up for something. Something bigger than what Kendall had planned. Louis swallowed hard.

Harry clicked on his iPod with one hand while he kept the other on the wheel.

“Hallelujah,” Louis said, smiling.

“What?”

“The song. I love this cover.”

“Really?” Harry looked obnoxiously surprised. “Doesn’t seem like your thing.”

“Oh? What’s my thing?”

“I had you pegged for a closeted pop fan.”

“Bite me.”

“If I must.”

The song ended and something classical came on. Louis reached for the iPod. “May I?” Harry shook his head in exaggerated disappointment, but waved him on anyway. “Calm yourself. I wasn’t going to change it, I just wanted to see.” Louis scrolled through his music; Harry had excellent but consistent taste. Louis was much more diverse. He smiled with satisfaction.

Harry arched an eyebrow. “What are you smirking about, over there?”

“I’m more well-rounded than you.”

“Not possible. You’re American,” he said. “And if it is true, it’s only because you like crap.”

“How is it that you have friends, Harry?”

“I ask myself that daily.” He chomped down on the plastic straw.

“Seriously. Inquiring minds want to know.”

Harry’s brow creased, but he stared straight ahead. “I guess I don’t.”

“Could have fooled me.”

“That wouldn’t be difficult.”

That stung. “Go to hell,” Louis said quietly.

“Already there,” Harry said calmly, pulling out the straw from his mouth and chucking it on the floor.

“So why are you doing this?” Louis asked, careful to keep his voice even, but an unpleasant image of himself at a prom night soiree covered in pig’s blood crept into his mind.

“I want to show you something.”

Louis turned away and looked out the window. He never knew which Harry to expect from day to day. Or hell, minute to minute.

Tangled overpasses wove around and above them, the hulking concrete monstrosities the only scenery on this part of I-95. They were heading south, and Harry and Louis didn’t speak most of the way.

At some point, the urban landscape gave way to ocean on both sides of the highway. It narrowed from four lanes to two and a steep, high bridge loomed in front of them.

Very steep. Very high.

They climbed behind the swarm of brake lights that crawled up the overpass in front of them. Louis’ throat closed. He gripped the center console with his bandaged hand, the pain screaming under his skin as he tried not to look straight ahead or to either side, where the turquoise water an the Miami skyline receded into smallness.

Harry placed his hand on Louis’. Just slightly. Barely touching.

But Louis felt it.

He tilted his head to look at Harry’s face, and he half-smiled while staring straight ahead. It was contagious. Louis smiled back. In response, Harry laced his fingers in between Louis’ bandaged ones, still resting on the plastic. Louis was too preoccupied by his hand on his to feel any pain.

“Are you afraid of anything?” Louis asked.

Harry’s smile evaporated. He nodded his head once.

“Well?” Louis prodded. “I showed you mine…”

“I’m afraid of forgeries.”

Louis turned away. Harry couldn’t even reciprocate. Neither of them spoke for about a minute. But then.

“I’m afraid of being fake. Empty,” Harry said tonelessly. He released Louis’ fingers and the palm of his hand rested on the back of Louis’ for a moment. Louis’ entire hand would fit almost completely into his. Louis flipped his over and laced their fingers together before he realized what he was doing.

Then he realized what he was doing. His heart skipped a beat. Louis watched Harry’s face for something. A sign, maybe. Louis honestly didn’t quite know what.

But there was nothing there. His expression was smooth, his forehead uncreased. Blank. And their fingers were still entwined. Louis didn’t know if his were holding Harry’s in place by force and if Harry’s were just resting or—

“There’s nothing I want. There’s nothing I can’t do. I don’t care about anything. No matter what, I’m an imposter. An actor in my own life.”

His sudden candor floored Louis. He had no idea what to say, so he said nothing.

Harry extracted his hand from Louis’ and pointed to an enormous gold dome across the water. “That’s the Miami Seaquarium.”

Still nothing.

Harry’s free hand searched in his pocket. He tapped out a cigarette and lit it, exhaling the smoke through his nose. “We ought to go.”

He wanted to take Louis back home. And to Louis’ surprise, he didn’t want that. “Harry, I—”

“To the seaquarium. They have a killer whale there.”

“Okay…”

“Her name’s Lolita.”

“That’s…”

“Twisted?”

“Yeah.”

“I know.”

And let the awkward silence ensue. They turned off the highway, in an opposite direction from the Seaquarium, and the street curved into a busy neighborhood filled with peach, yellow, orange, and pink stucco boxes—houses—with bars on the windows. Everything was in Spanish; every sign, every storefront. But even as Louis looked, he felt Harry sitting next to him, inches away, waiting for him to say something. So he did.

“So, uh, have you see—Lolita?” Louis asked. He wanted to punch himself in the face.

“God, no.”

“Then how’d you hear about her?”

Harry ran his fingers through his hair and a few strands fell into his eyes, catching the mid-morning sunlight. “My mother’s somewhat of an animal rights activist.”

“Right, the vet thing.”

“No, from before that. She became a vet because of the animal business. And it’s more than that, anyway.”

Louis knit his eyebrows together. “I don’t think it’s possible to be any more vague.”

“Well, I don’t know how to describe it, honestly.”

“Like animal rescue and stuff?” Louis wondered if Harry’s mother had pulled any dog theft capers like his with Mabel.

“Kind of, but not what you’re thinking.”

Ha. “So, what then?”

“Ever heard of the Animal Liberation Front?”

“Aren’t they the ones that let all of those lab monkeys out of their cages and they spread this virus that turns people into zombies…?”

“I think that’s a movie.”

“Right.”

“But that’s the general idea.”

Louis conjured an image of Dr. Styles in a ski mask freeing lab animals. “I like your mom.”

Harry smiled slightly. “Her primate freedom fighting days ended after she married my father. The in-laws didn’t approve,” he said with mock solemnity. “But she still gives money to those groups. When we moved here, she was all riled up about Lolita and she had a few fundraisers to try to raise enough money to get a bigger tank.”

“What happened?” Louis asked, as Harry took a long drag on his cigarette.

“The bastards kept raising their price with no guarantee that they’d actually build the thing,” Harry said, exhaling the smoke through his nose. “Anyway, because of my dad, she just gives money now, I think. I’ve seen the return envelopes in the outgoing mail.”

Harry took a sharp right, and Louis reflexively glanced out the window. He hadn’t been paying attention to the scenery—he was sitting inches away from Harry, after all—but now noticed that somewhere along the way, North Cuba had transformed into East Hampton. Sunlight filtered through the leaves of the enormous trees that lined both sides of the street, dappling their faces and hands through the glass of the windshield and sunroof. The houses here were experiments in excess; each one was more ostentatious and absurd than the next, and there was no uniform look to them whatsoever. The only thing the modern, glass house on one side of the street had in common with its opposite, a stately Victorian, was the scale. They were palaces.

“Harry?” Louis asked slowly.

“Yes?”

“Where are we going?”

“I’m not telling you.”

Then, after a beat, “Don’t worry, you’ll like her.”

Louis looked down at the shredded knees of his jeans and his worn sneakers. “I feel ridiculously underdressed for a Sunday brunch scenario. Just saying.”

“She won’t care,” he said as he ran his fingers through his hair. “And you’re perfect.”

❂

 **R** ows of palm trees sprung up from the sides of the narrow street, and the ocean peeked out from the spaces in between homes. When they drove to the end of the cul-de-sac, an enormous automated iron gate opened for them. A camera was perched at the entrance. The day was getting weirder.

“So…what does this friend do, exactly?”

“You could call her a lady of leisure.”

“Makes sense. You probably don’t have to work if you can afford to live here.”

“No, probably not.”

They passed an enormous, garish fountain in the center of the property; a muscled, barely clothed Greek man clasping the waist of a girl who reached into the sky. Her arms transformed into branches and sprouted pale, golden water in the sunlight. Harry pulled all the way up to the front entrance, where a man in a suit was waiting.

“Good morning, Mr. Styles,” the man said, as he nodded to Harry, and then moved toward the passenger side door to open it for Louis.

“Morning, Albert. I got it.”

Harry exited the car and opened the door for Louis. Louis narrowed his eyes at him, but Harry avoided his stare.

“You must be here often,” Louis said cautiously.

“Yes.”

Albert opened the front door for them and Harry breezed right in.

As extravagant as the landscaping, fountain, driveway, and gate were, nothing, _nothing_ could have prepared Louis for the mansion’s interior. On either side of them, arches and columns towered into a double balcony. Louis’ Vans squeaked on the flawless patterned marble floor, and there was another Greek-inspired fountained in the center of the inner courtyard, with three woman carrying watering jugs. The sheer enormousness of the place was staggering.

“No one can possibly live here,” Louis said to himself.

Harry heard him. “Why’s that?”

“Because this is not a house. This is like…a set. For some mafia movie. Or a tacky wedding venue. Or… _Annie_.”

Harry tilted his head. “A scathing, yet accurate analysis. Alas, I am afraid people do actually live here.”

Harry sauntered carelessly to the end of the courtyard and turned left. Louis followed him, wide-eyed and wondrous, into an equally expansive hallway. Louis didn’t notice the small, black streak of fur hurtling in his direction until she was only a few feet away. Harry whisked the dog into the air just as it charged Louis.

“You little bitch,” Harry said to the snarling dog. “Behave.”

Louis raised an eyebrow at him.

“Louis, meet Ruby.” The squirming mass of fat rolls and fur stained for Louis’ jugular, but Harry held her back. The pug’s smushed face only magnified the sounds of her fury. It was disturbing and hilarious at the same time.

“She’s…charming,” Louis said.

“Harry?” Louis turned around to see Harry’s mother standing about twenty feet behind them, barefooted and impeccably dressed in white linen. “I thought you were out for the day,” she said.

Out for the day?

“Like an idiot, I left the keys here.”

Left the keys…here.

That was when Louis first noticed the fawn-color dog trying to hide behind Dr. Styles’ knees.

“Is that…?” Louis looked from the dog to Harry. Harry’s face broke into a smile.

“Mabel!” Harry called loudly.

She whined in and stepped backward, farther behind the fabric of Dr. Styles’ dress.

“Come here, gorgeous.”

She whined again.

Still looking at the dog, Harry said, “Mum, you remember Louis?” He tilted his head in Louis’ direction while he crouched, trying to call the dog over.

“I do,” she said, smiling. “How are you?”

“Good,” Louis said, but he was too absorbed in the scene unfolding before him to really focus. The vicious pug. Mabel’s terror. And the fact that Harry lived here. _Here_.

Harry walked over to where his mother stood and reached down to pet Mabel, with Ruby still struggling in his other arm. Mabel thumped her tail against Dr. Styles’ legs. It was incredible how much better she looked after just over a week. Her spine and hip bones still protruded, but she was already starting to fill out. And her coat looked impossibly healthier. Amazing.

“Would you take her?” Harry offered the little dog to his mother, who held her arms out. “Since I had to double back, I thought I’d let Louis and Mabel get reacquainted while we’re here.”

Mabel wanted no part of that plan, and Dr. Styles seemed to know it. “Why don’t I take them both upstairs while you two—”

“It’s Ruby fussing that’s making her nervous. Just take her, we’ll be fine.” Harry crouched down to pet Mabel.

Dr. Styles shrugged. “It was nice to see you again, Louis.”

“You too,” he said quietly, as she walked out.

Harry lifted Mabel in a football carry before she could bolt after Dr. Styles. The poor dog’s legs paddled as if she were running on a phantom treadmill. A memory of a hissing black cat flared in Louis’ mind.

“ _You’re scaring her_ ,” Ernest had said.

Mabel was sacred too. Of Louis.

His breath caught in his throat. That was a crazy thing to think. Why would she be scared of him? He was being paranoid. Something else was freaking her out. Louis tried not to let the hurt leak into his voice when he spoke. “Maybe your mom’s right, Harry.”

“She’s fine, Ruby just makes her nervous.”

The white’s of Mabel’s eyes were visible by the time Harry carried her over to where Louis stood. Harry looked at him, confused. “What did you do, bathe in leopard urine before you left the house this morning?”

“Yes. Leopard urine. Never leave home without it.”

Mabel whined and yelped and strained against Harry’s arms. “All right,” he said finally. “Mission aborted.” He placed Mabel on the floor and watched her scramble out of the hall, her claws clicking on the marble. “She probably doesn’t remember you,” Harry said, still looking in Mabel’s direction.

Louis dropped his gaze. “I’m sure that’s it,” he said. He didn’t want Harry to see that he was upset.

“Well,” Harry said finally. He rocked back on his heels and studied Louis.

Louis willed himself not to blush under his stare. “Well.” Time to change the subject. “You are a lying liar who lies.”

“Oh?”

Louis looked around them, at the towering ceiling and sweeping balconies. “You kept all of this a secret.”

“No, I didn’t. You just never asked.”

“How was I supposed to guess? You dress like a hobo.”

At this, a mocking grin crept over Harry’s mouth. “Haven’t you heard not to judge a book by it’s cover?”

“If I’d have known it was Trite Proverb Day, I would have stayed home.” Louis rubbed his forehead and shook his head. “I can’t believe you didn’t say anything.”

Harry’s eyes challenged him. “Like what?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Like, ‘Louis, you might want to brush your hair and put on a suit because I’m going to take you to my family’s place in Miami Beach on Sunday.’ Something like that.”

Harry stretched his lithe frame, locking his fingers and raising his arms above his head. His white T-shirt rose, exposing a sliver of stomach and the elastic of his boxers above the low waistband of his jeans. Button fly, Louis noticed.

Well played.

“First, you don’t need to do anything to your hair,” he said as Louis rolled his eyes. “Second, you wouldn’t last an hour in dress shoes, where we’re going. Speaking of which, I have to get the keys.”

“Oh, yes, the mysterious keys.”

“Are you going to go on about this the entire day now? I thought we were making progress.”

“Sorry. I’m just a tad rattled by the pug track and Mabel’s freak-out. And the fact that you live in the Taj Mahal.”

“Rubbish. The Taj Mahal is only a hundred eighty-six square feet. This house has twenty-five thousand.”

Louis stared at him blankly.

“I was kidding,” Harry said.

Louis stared at him blankly.

“All right, I wasn’t kidding. Let’s go, shall we?”

“After you, my liege,” Louis said.

Harry gave an exaggerated sigh as he started walking to an enormous staircase with an intricately carved bannister. Louis followed him up, and shamefully enjoyed the view. Harry’s jeans were tight, clinging to his hips.

When they finally reached the top of the staircase, Harry took a left down a long corridor. The plush Oriental rugs muffled their footsteps, and Louis’ eyes drank in the detailed oil paintings that hung from the walls. Eventually, Harry stopped in front of a gleaming wooden door. He reached to open it, but they heard the careless slam of a door behind them and turned.

“Harry?” asked a sleep-ridden voice. Female.

“Hey, Gem.”

Even with pillow creases on her face, the familiar girl was absolutely stunning. She looked as otherworldly standing there in a camisole and shorts set as she had in the fairy getup. Without the costume and the pulsing lights in the club, it was obvious that she shared Harry’s extraterrestrial beauty. Her hair was the same dark honey brown color as his, only longer; the ends skimmed the lace bottom of her camisole. Her brown eyes widened in surprise as they met Louis’.

“I didn’t know you had company,” she said to Harry, suppressing a smile.

He shot her a look, then turned to Louis. “Louis, my sister Gem.”

“Gemma,” she corrected him, then gave Louis a knowing glance. “Morning.”

Louis couldn’t among much more than a nod. At that moment, a perky, blond cheerleader was doing cartwheels in vena cava. His sister. His _sister_!

“It’s almost noon, now, actually,” Harry said.

Gemma shrugged and yawned. “Well, nice meeting you, Louis,” she said, and winked at him before heading down the stairs.

“You too,” Louis managed to breathe. His heart rioted in his chest.

Harry opened the door all the way and Louis tried to compose himself. This changed nothing. Nothing at all. Harry Styles was still a whore, still an asshole, and still painfully out of Louis’ league. This was his inner mantra, the one he repeated on a loop until Harry tilted his head and spoke.

“Are you coming in?”

Yes. Yes he was.

❂

 **H** arry’s room was startling. A low, modern platform bed dominated the center of it but otherwise, there was no furniture except for a long desk that blended inconspicuously into an alcove. There were no posters. No laundry. Just a guitar leaning against the side of the bed. And the books.

Rows u[on rows of books, lining built-in shelves that stretched from the floor to the ceiling. Sunlight spilled through the enormous windows that overlooking Biscayne Bay.

Louis never imagined what Harry’s room would look like, but if he had, he wouldn’t have imagined this. It was gorgeous,s definitely. But so…bare. Unloved in. Louis circled the room, trailing his fingers along some of the spines as he went.

“Welcome to the private collection of Harry Styles,” he said.

Louis stared at all of the titles. “You have not read all of these.”

“Not yet.”

Louis cracked a smile. “So it’s a tail-chasing tactic.”

“Pardon?” Louis could hear the amusement in his voice.

“Vanity books,” Louis said without looking at him. “You don’t actually read them, they’re just here to impress your…guests.”

“You’re a mean guy, Louis Tomlinson,” Harry said, standing in the middle of his room. Louis felt Harry’s eyes on him, and he liked it.

“I’m wrong?” Louis asked.

“You are wrong.”

“All right,” Louis said, and pulled a random book from the shelf. “ _Maurice_ , by E.M. Forster. What’s it about? Go.”

Harry told him about the gay protagonist who attended Cambridge in turn-of-the-centre Britain. Louis didn’t believe him, but he hadn’t read it so he moved on.

“ _A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man_?”

Harry belly-flopped on to his bed, affecting the bored tone as he rattled off another synopsis. Louis’ eyes followed the thousand-mile stretch of his back and Louis’ feet itched wth the confusing impulse to walk over and join him. Instead, he pulled out another book without reading the spine first.

“ _Ulysses_ ,” Louis called out.

Harry shook his head, his face buried in the pillow.

Satisfied, Louis smiled to himself, put the book back on the shelf and reached for another. The dust jacket was missing, so he read the title rom the cover. “ _The Joy of_ …crap.” Louis read the rest of the full title of the thick, nondescript volume to himself and felt himself redden.

Harry turned over on to his side and said with mock seriousness, “I have never read _The Joy of Crap_. Sounds disgusting.” Louis blushed deeper. “I have, however, read _The Joy of Sex_ ,” he continued, a mischievous smile transforming his face. “Not in a while, but I think it’s one of those classics you can come back to again…and again.”

“I don’t like this game anymore,” Louis said as he placed the book back on its shelf.

Harry reached over to the floor next to his bed, near the acoustic guitar that was propped up against a sticker covered case. He jangled the keys. “Well, we can go now. You can come back and grill me on the library’s contents later,” he said, his grin still in place. “You hungry?”

Louis was, actually, and nodded. Harry walked to a well-disguised intercom and pressed his finger on the call button.

“If you order some servant to bring food, I’m leaving.”

“I was going to make sure Albert hadn’t moved the car.”

“Oh, right. Albert the butler.”

“He’s a valet, actually.”

“You are not helping yourself.”

Harry ignored him and glanced at the clock by his bed. “We really ought to have been there by now; I want you to have time to get the full experience. But we can stop at Mireya’s on the way.”

“Another friend?”

“A restaurant. Cuban. The best.”

When they reached the car, Albert smiled as Harry opened Louis’ door for him. After the mansion was out of sight, Louis screwed up the courage to attack Harry with the questions that plagued him since learning of his assets. The financial sort.

“So who are you people?” Louis asked.

“You people?” He slipped on his sunglasses.

“Cute. Your family. Supposedly, the only people who live here are basketball players and has-been pop singers.”

“My father owns a company.”

“Okay,” Louis said. “What kind of company?”

“Biotechnology.”

“So where was Daddy Warbucks this morning?”

Harry’s face was curiously blank. “Don’t know, don’t care,” he said easily. He stared straight ahead. “We’re not…close,” Harry added.

“Clearly.” Louis waited for him to elaborate, but Harry lifted his sunglasses and hid his eyes instead. Time to change the subject. “So why doesn’t your mother have a British accent?”

“She doesn’t have an _English_ accent because she’s American.”

“Oh my God, really?” Louis mocked. He saw Harry’s smile in profile. Harry paused before continuing.

“She’s from Massachusetts. And she is not actually my biological mother.” He looked at Louis sideways, gauging his reaction. Louis kept his face even. He didn’t know much about Harry, aside from his rumored extracurricular activities. But Louis realized then that he wanted to. He had no idea what to expect this morning when Harry picked him up, and to an extent, he still didn’t. But Louis no longer thought it would be some nefarious plot, and that made him curious.

“My mother died when I was five and Gemma was almost six.”

The revelation knocked Louis out of his thoughts. And made him feel like a jackass, after picking not one but two unpleasant topics of conversation. “I’m sorry,” Louis said lamely.

“Thanks,” Harry said, staring at the bright road ahead of them. “It was a long time ago, I don’t really remember her,” he said, but his posture had stiffened. He didn’t speak for a minute, and Louis wondered if he was supposed to say something. But then Louis remembered everyone telling him how sorry they were when Niall died, and how little he wanted to hear it. There was just nothing to say.

Harry surprised him by continuing. “Before my mother died, she and my dad and Ruth,” he tipped his head back toward the house,” were all really close. Ruth spent high school in England, so that’s how they met, and they stayed friends while at Cambridge, wreaking havoc and organizing protests.”

Louis’ eyebrows raised.

“Ruth told me my mother was the most…enthusiastic. Chaining herself to trees and breaking into university science departments and freeing lab animals and such,” Harry said, as he placed a cigarette between his lips. “The three of them ran around doing it together—incomprehensible, if you know my father—and somehow, he convinced my mother to marry him.” The cigarette dangled from his lips as he spoke, drawing Louis’ eyes like magnets. “While they were still in college. Some ultimate act of rebellion or something.” He lit the cigarette, opened his window, and inhaled. His face was carefully impassive beneath the dark lenses as he spoke.

“My grandparents were unenthused. They’re old money, were not fans of my mother’s to start, and thought my father was ruining his prospects. Et cetera, et eater. But they married anyway. My stepmother moved back to the U.S. for vet school, and my parents live _la vie bohème_ for a while. When they had kids, my grandparents were happy. Gem and I were so close together that I think they were hoping my mother would go on maternity leave from civil disobedience.” Harry fed the ash of his cigarette to the expanse of the highway behind them. “But my mother didn’t slow down at all. She just took us with her wherever she went. Until she died. She was stabbed.”

Oh my God.

“At a protest.”

Jesus.

“She made my father stay home to watch Gem that day, but I was with her. I’d just turned five a few days before, but I don’t remember it. O much of her at all, really. My father won’t even mention her name, and he loses it if anyone else does,” Harry said, without inflection.

Louis was speechless. Harry’s mother died—was murdered—and he was there when it happened. Harry breathed smoke through his nose, and it billowed around him before escaping through the open window. It was a gorgeous day, blue and cloudless. But there could have bee a hurricane outside for all Louis cared. In an instant, Harry became different to him. He was riveted.

“Ruth went back to England when she heard about my mother. A long time ago, she told me that after my mother died, my father was useless. Couldn’t take care of us, couldn’t take care of himself. Literally a disaster—this was, of course, before he sold his soul to the shareholders. And she stayed, and they got married, even though he doesn’t deserve her, even though he’d become someone else. And here we are now, one big happy family.

His expression was inscrutable behind his sunglasses, and Louis wished he could see it. Did anyone at school know about his mother—about him? And then it occurred to him that Harry didn’t know about what happened to _Louis_. Louis looked at his lap, fidgeting with the shredded knee of his jeans. If he told him now, it might sound like he was comparing tragedies—like he thought losing a best friend was comparable to losing a parent, which Louis didn’t. But if Louis said nothing, what would Harry think?

“I just—” Louis started. “I don’t even—”

“Thanks,” Harry said, cutting hi off coolly. “It’s all right.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“No, it isn’t,” he said plainly. Harry pushed his sunglasses up, but his face was still guarded. “However, there are benefits to having a corporate sellout of a father.

Harry was flippant, so Louis was too. “Like getting a car on your sixteenth birthday?”

Harry’s grin was full of mischief. “Gem has a Maserati.”

Louis blinked. “She does not.”

“She does. She has yet to get her license to drive it legally.”

Louis raised his eyebrow. “And your car? Is it your brand of teenage rebellion or something?”

The corner of Harry’s mouth curved up into a slight smile. “Sad, isn’t it?” He said it lightly, but there was something haunted about his expression. His eyebrows drew together, and Louis wanted so badly to reach over and smooth them apart.

“I don’t think so,” Louis said instead. “I think it’s brave. There’s so much _stuff_ you could buy with that much money. Not take it is—it’s pretty moral.”

Harry feigned horror. “Did you just call me moral?”

“I believe I did.”

“Little does he know,” Harry said, and turned up the volume on his iPod.

“Death Cab?” Louis asked. “Really?” he asked.

“You sound surprised.”

“I wouldn’t have thought you liked them.”

“They’re one of the only modern bands I do like.”

“I’m going to have to broaden your musical tastes,” Louis said.

“It’s too early for threats,” Harry said as he turned on to a bustling, narrow road. It was alive with people out enjoying the weather. Harry parked on the street just as the song ended, and Louis let him open the door for him. He was starting to get used to it. They passed a small park where a handful of old men sat, playing dominoes. A large, colorful mural was painted on one wall, and striped tents covered the game tables. Louis had never seen anything like it before.

“It doesn’t mean anything, you know,” Harry said out of nowhere.

“What doesn’t?”

“The money.”

Louis looked around, at the mostly shabby storefronts and the cars parked on the street. Harry’s might have been the newest one. “I think your perspective is somewhat skewed because, you know, you actually have it.”

Harry stopped walking, and stared straight ahead. “It’s shut-up money,” he said, and there was an edge to his voice. “So my father doesn’t have to spend any time with us.” But then his tone lightened. “Even if he gave me nothing, there’s still the trust I come into when I turn eighteen.”

“Nice. When’s that?” Louis asked.

Harry started walking again. “February first.”

“I missed your birthday,” And that made Louis sad, for some reason.

“You did.”

“What do you think you’ll do with the money?”

Harry flashed a grin. “Convert it to gold coins and swim in it. But first,” he said, taking Louis’ hand, “lunch.”

❂

 **L** ouis’ body warmed at the contact as Harry led the way into the bustling restaurant. Louis watched him in profile, talking to the host. Somehow, he didn’t look like the same person he’d met two weeks ago. He didn’t look like the same person who picked Louis up this morning. Harry—sarcastic, distant, untouchable Harry—cared. And that made him real.

Louis wondered if anyone else knew, but enjoyed a fleeting moment thinking that he might be the only one as they were led to a table by the window. But then Harry’s grip tightened on Louis’ hand. He looked up at him. The color had drained from his face.

“Harry?” His eyes were tightly shut, and Louis began to feel scared without knowing why. “Are you okay?”

“Give me a minute,” he said, not opening his eyes. He dropped Louis’ hand. “I’ll be right back.”

Harry threaded back the way they’d come in and disappeared out of the restaurant. A bit dazed, Louis sat down at the table and perused the menu. He was thirsty, though, and lifted his head to scan the restaurant for a waiter when he saw him.

Liam.

Staring at Louis from under the brim of his hat. In the middle of a throng of people waiting for a seat.

He started walking toward him.

Louis squeezed his eyes shut. He wasn’t real.

“How does it feel to be the most beautiful person in the room?”

Louis jumped at the accented voice. Not Harry’s. And definitely not Liam’s. When Louis opened his eyes, a fair-skinned guy with blonde hair and hazel eyes was standing next to the table with an earnest expression. He was cute.

“Mind if I join you?” he asked as he slipped into the seat across from Louis. Apparently he had no intention of waiting for Louis’ answer.

Louis narrowed his eyes at him. “Actually, I’m here with someone,” Louis said. Where was Harry?

“Oh? A boyfriend?”

Louis paused before answering, “A friend.”

His grin widened. “He’s a fool.”

“What?”

“If he’s just a friend he’s a fool. I don’t think I could stand being just your friend. I’m Alain, by the way.”

Louis snorted. Who was this guy? “Luckily, Alain,” Louis said, mispronouncing his name on purpose, “I don’t force that being a problem.”

“You don’t? Why’s that?”

“Because you were just leaving,” Harry said from behind Louis. Harry stood inches away, leaning over Louis just slightly. The tension was evident in the set of his shoulders.

Alain stood, and fished for something in the pocket of his jeans, withdrawing a pen. “In case you get tired of friends,” he said, scrawling something on a napkin, “here’s my number.” He slid it over the surface of the table in Louis’ direction. Harry’s hand reached over his shoulder and took it.

Alain’s eyes narrowed at Harry. “He can make his own decisions.”

Harry stood still for a second, staring at him. Then he relaxed, and a spark of amusement lit his eyes. “Of course he can,” he said, and raised an eyebrow at Louis. “Well?”

Louis stared at Alain. “That seat’s taken.”

Alain grinned. “It certainly is.”

Harry turned to him too casually and said something in French—Louis watched Alain’s expression grow increasingly anxious. “Still care to join us?” Harry asked him, but Alain was already leaving.

Harry slipped into the now-empty seat and smiled. “Tourists,” he said, shrugging lazily.

Louis glared at him, even though he wasn’t mad. He was calm, actually. Usually so, for his post-hallucinatory state. He was glad Harry was back. But he couldn’t let him off so easily. “What did you say to him?”

Harry picked up the menu and spoke while studying it. “Enough.”

But Louis wasn’t having it. “If you’re not going to tell me, then give me his number.”

“I told him you were in high school,” he said, without looking up.

“That’s it?” Louis was skeptical.

A hint of a smile appeared on Harry’s lips. “Mostly. You look too old for your own good.”

Louis’ eyebrows shot up. “You’re one to talk.”

Harry grinned and placed the menu on the table. Then stared out the window. Distracted.

“What’s wrong?”

Harry glanced up at him and gave him a tight smile. “Nothing.”

Louis didn’t believe him.

The waiter appeared them, and Harry plucked the menu from Louis’ hands and handed it over, rushing off their order in Spanish. The waiter departed for the kitchen.

Louis shot him a dark look. “I hadn’t decided yet.”

“Trust me.”

“Guess I don’t have much of a choice.” A devious smile formed on Harry’s lips. Louis took a deep breath and, for the sake of peace, let it go. “So, Spanish _and_ French?”

Harry answered with a slow, arrogant grin. Louis had to concentrate to prevent himself from melting in the plastic-covered seat.

“Do you speak anything else?” Louis asked.

“Well, what level of fluency are we talking about here?”

“Anything.”

The waiter returned, and brought two empty, frosted glasses along with dark bottles of something. He poured the caramel colored drinks for them, then left.

Harry took a sip before answering. Then said, “German, Spanish, Dutch, Mandarin, and, of course, French.”

Impressive. “Say something in German,” Louis said, and took a sip of the drink. It was sweet with a spicy, sharp finish. Louis wasn’t sure he liked it.

“ _Schemed_ ,” Harry said.

Louis decided to give the drink another shot. “What does that mean?” Louis asked, then sipped.

“Vagina.”

Louis almost choked, and covered his mouth with his hand. After he compose himself, he spoke. “Lovely. Is that all you know?”

“In German, Dutch, and Mandarin, yes.”

Louis shook his head. “Why, Harry, do you know the worst for vagina in every language?”

“Because I’m European, and therefore more cultured than you,” he said, taking another swig and trying not to smile. Before Louis could smack him, the waiter then brought a basket of what looked like banana chips accompanied by a vicious, pale yellow sauce.

“ _Mariquitas_ ,” Harry said. “Try one, you’ll thank me.”

Louis tried one. And he did thank him. They were savory with just a hint of sweet, and the garlic-burn of the sauce made his tongue sing.

“God, these are good,” Harry said. “I could snort them.”

The waiter returned and loaded their table with food. Louis couldn’t identify anything except for the rice and beans; the oddest looking were plates of glistening fried dough balls of some sort, and a dish of some white fleshy vegetable smothered in sauce and onions. Louis pointed to it.

“Yuca,” Harry said.

Louis pointed to the dough balls.

“Fried plantains.”

Louis pointed to a low bowl filled with what purported to be stew, but then Harry said, “Are you going to point, or are you going to eat?”

“I just like to know what I’m putting in my mouth before I swallow.”

Harry arched an eyebrow, and Louis wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

Shockingly, Harry let it slide. Instead, he explained what everything as as he held the dishes out for Louis to take from. When Louis was full to bursting, the waiter arrived with the check, setting it down in front of Harry. In an echo of his earlier gesture with Alain’s number, Louis slid the check his way as he dug in his pocket for cash.

A look of horror dawned on Harry’s face. “What are you doing?”

“I am paying for my lunch.”

“I don’t understand,” Harry said.

“Food costs money.”

“Brilliant. But that still doesn’t explain why you think you’re paying for it.”

“Because I can pay for my own food.”

“It was ten dollars.”

“And, wouldn’t you know it, I have ten dollars.”

“And I have an American Express Black Card.”

“Harry—”

“You have a little something right here, by the way,” he said, pointing to the side of his sculpted jaw.

Oh, how horrible. “Where? Here?” Louis grabbed a napkin from the dispenser on the table and rubbed at the location where the offending food bit seemed to be lurking. Harry shook his head, and Louis rubbed again.

“Still there,” he said. “May I?” Harry indicated the napkin dispenser and leaned over the table at eye level, ready to wipe Louis’ face like a food-splattered toddler. Misery. Louis squinted his eyes shunt out of shame and waited for the feel of the paper napkin on his skin.

He felt Harry’s fingertips on his cheek instead. Louis stopped breathing, and opened his eyes, then shook his head. How embarrassing.

“Thanks,” Louis said quietly. “I’m completely uncivilized.”

“Then I supposed I’m going to have to civilize you,” Harry said, and Louis noticed then that the check had disappeared.

One look at Harry told Louis he’d take it. Very slick.

Louis narrowed his eyes at him. “I was warned about you, you know.”

And with that half-smile that wrecked Louis, Harry said, “But you’re here anyway.”

❂

 **A** half-hour later, Harry drove up to the front entrance of the Miami Beach Convention Center and parked next to the curb. On top of the words **NO PARKING** emblazoned on the asphalt. Louis gave him a skeptical look.

“A perk of being Baby Warbucks,” Harry said.

Harry withdrew the keys from his pocket and walked over to the door like he owned the building. Hell, he probably did. It was pitch-black inside, and Harry felt for the lights and flipped them on.

The art took Louis’ breath away.

It was everywhere. Every surface was covered; the floors themselves were pieces, geographic patterns painted beneath their feet. There were installations everywhere. Sculpture, photography, prints; anything and everything.

“Oh my God.”

“Yes?”

Louis smacked Harry’s arm. “Harry, what _is_ this?”

“And exhibition funded by some group my mother’s on the board of,” he said. “Two thousand artists are being shown, I think.”

“Where is everyone?”

“The show doesn’t open for five days. It’s just us.”

Louis was speechless. He turned to Harry and stared at him, mouth agape. He looked deliriously pleased with himself.

“Another perk,” Harry said, and grinned.

They walked the labyrinth of exhibits, weaving their way through the industrial space. It was like nothing Louis had ever seen. Some of the _rooms_ were art; walls twisted with metalwork, or entirely crocheted in a walk-in tapestry.

Louis wandered over to a sculpture installation, a forest of tall, abstract pieces that surrounded him. They looked like trees or people, depending on the angle, copper and nickel mingling together, towering over his head. Louis was amazed at the scale of it, the amount of effort it must have taken the artist to create something like this. And Harry brought him here, knowing he would love it, arranging the whole day for Louis. Louis wanted to run over and give him the hug of his life.

“Harry?” His voice bounced off the walls in a hollow echo. Harry didn’t answer.

Louis turned around. He wasn’t there. The giddiness he’d felt slipped away, replaced by a low buzzing of fear. He walked to the far wall, looking for a way out and registered the soreness of his calves and thighs for the first time. He must have been walking for a while. The vastness of the space swallowed his footsteps. The wall a dead end.

Louis need to go back the way he came, and tried to remember which way that was. As he passed the trees—or were they people?—he felt their faceless, misshapen trunks twist in his direction, following him. Louis stared straight ahead, even while their limbs reached out to grab him. Because they weren’t reaching. They weren’t moving. It wasn’t real. Louis was just scared and it wasn’t real and maybe he would start taking the pills when he got home later.

 _If_ he got home later.

He escaped the metal forest unscathed, of course, but then found himself surrounded by enormous photographs of houses and buildings in various stages of decay. The images stretched from floor to ceiling, making it seem like Louis was walking on a real sidewalk beside them. Ivy crept over brick walls, and trees bent and leaned into the structures, sometime swallowing them whole. The grass might have edged on the the concrete floor of the Convention Center, too. And there were people in the pictures. Three people with backpacks, scaling a fence at the border of one of the properties. Niall. Nick. Liam.

Louis blinked. No, not them. No one. There were no people in the picture at all.

The air pressed in on Louis and he quickened his pace, his head pounding, his feet sore, and rushed through the photographs, detouring at a sharp corner to try and find the exit. But when he turned, he faced another photograph.

Thousands of pounds of brick and concrete rubble were strewn along the wooded grounds. It was a picture of destruction, as if a tornado had hit a building and all that was left was a pile of rubble and the vague sense that there were people beneath it. It was reverent—each ray of sunlight that filtered through the trees cast a perfect, distorted shadow on the snow-covered ground.

And then the dust and bricks and beams began to move. Darkness pressed in on the edges of Louis’ vision as the snow and sunlight receded, leaving dead leaves in their wake. The dust curled back in on itself and the bricks and beams flew and towered and reassembled themselves. Louis couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see. He lost his balance and fell, and when he hit the floor, his eyes flew open at the shock of the impact. But he was no longer in the Convention Center.

Louis was no longer in Miami at all. He was standing right beside the asylum, right next to Niall and Nick and Liam.


End file.
